"that is what abuse is:
knowing you are
going to get salt
but still hoping for sugar
for nineteen years."
Amanda Lovelace wrote this collection of stories told through poems as a way of coming to terms with her past. It is a therapeutic offering, a way of looking back at your formative years and pinpointing what exactly it was that broke you. It is a harrowing story of emotional abuse - first from her mother, later from boyfriends she thought were supposed to behave that way. We go through all the pains of growing up - exacerbated by being a girl - and are faced with great loss. Loss of security, love, family...
"fuck the idea
that there is
such a thing
as destiny,
that there exists
some kind of
mysterious master plan,
that there is a god who
simply
does not
give us anything
we cannot
handle."
The collection is divided into four parts. The first "the princess" sets the scene, with the young Lovelace recounting stories of growing up, telling us she was "born a little bookmad", how she used to dream of living in the Harry Potter world that would provide such a neat escape from her reality. Her abusive mother forbade her to eat so her daughter would lose weight, this then led to more serious self-harm. Friendless and lonely, the young girl sculpted friends out of book characters so she'd keep a bit of sanity. We end with her getting her first period - becoming a woman, right? - and having that terrible feeling that from now on her body belonged to everyone else. Still, she sat alone, waiting for a savior, not realizing she could be her own knight.
The following part is "the damsel" in which she is looking for help in all the wrong people. She is in a abusive relationship with a mother that is dying from cancer. The tragedies strike one after another, each a terrible blow to the young woman's heart - her older sister dies unexpectedly, followed by her terminally ill mother, and more family deaths seem to occur every time she answers her phone. Lovelace tackles the complicated feeling of relief that come with a death that is normal circumstances should've shattered you. In "the queen" we see how the death of her mother ushered in a relationship with her estranged father - an unexpected boon. Good things finally start happening once she takes the reins of her own life - she meets the love of her life and he is her rock, helping her navigate the task of learning to love herself after all this time. She wonders about the future and is hopeful.
"if i ever
have a daughter,
the first
thing
i will
teach her
to love
will be
the word
"no"
&
i will
not
let her feel
guilty
fir using it."
And in the end, in the fourth part "you", Lovelace leaves a few messages for us, the readers. It's mostly things she's had to learn the hard way - go and read as much as you can, write as much as you can, turn the ugliest parts of you into something beautiful and healing, messages of revolution and fighting for one's existence, a rumination on female poets and women's peace... I did not identify with all these stories - thankfully - but enough touched me in the deep recesses of myself I try to keep hidden (to appear stronger, you see). The poems about being female, about rage and escapism felt like they were taken from my own brain - I just couldn't find the right words for them. Give this a try - it's a quick read if you want to do it one sitting, and even if you don't find anything that resonates with you it may open your eyes to others' silent suffering.
