Sat.WE..(Autobiography)......I WEAR RED...01.19.2013....Barbara H...

....today I wear red

as a sign of hope for

other innocents and

in memory of my

own lost...at the age

of ten....

how could it have been

my fault then

but I had no way of knowing

the scarlet letter branded

upon my mind

and on my heart was only

showing itself to me

how could anyone else

have known

since it was never uttered

only lay in festering

whose ache lead

the remainder of a childhood

spent as a nonchild,

a pretend child whose talent

became the many masks she wore

trust becomes lost and so it is that

search that becomes the path one walks

and for which the search continues

where does one begin when ones

beginnings have come to an abrupt

halt

and one does not know which way

to turn

and so it becomes a misted path

from that point on

until somehow, through all the muck

and mire through which the soul has

been dragged

a respite is found, an almost safe

plateau from which is afforded a new

glimpse of what could be if grasped

and run with

so today I wear red, in honor of the

scarlet letter branded upon my soul

by one who was suppose to be safe,

someone elses father,

a father in name only who fostered sin

and hurt, that BAD man who I hear

about and see

todays children warned about

and who I delicately warn my own

against , hopefully,

without taking their trust

not my father because my father was

the kind every little girl would cherish

but could not cherish me more when

I did not know how to tell

for my own father would have bid

me well

but at the time I did not know that!

As I became an adult and found the story

of the SCARLET LETTER, Hester became my

friend, fiction or not and even though the story

did not match my own exactly,

we shared the shame and repaired our lives

in much the same way.

In the only way possible, 

facing the world with a clearer eye

and a resolute will.

A hurt that is dealt this deeply seems

to negate any further fear.....

and it is at this point when the seed

of a new beginning is planted

I wear red in tribute to that hope...

01.19.2013

Barbara H.

Len Maxwell's prompting of Priya's suggested writing bits and pieces of ones life in a sort of autobiogrophy for Saturday Writing Essential.