Healing Myself, One Rhyme At a Time

By Donna Sivoli

Healing Myself, One Rhyme at a Time presents a collection of poetry by Donna Sivoli. She began writing as a small girl when she discovered that it wasn’t easy to express her thoughts and feelings in her childhood home. Instead, she wrote notes and buried them in the backyard, only to dig them up later. As an adult, she began writing poetry and stories as a sort of self-therapy in an attempt to heal herself from a dysfunctional and abusive childhood.

In these verses, she writes about family and her early love for her older brother, and how that love was destroyed through betrayal and all the other emotional ups and downs of growing up in a dysfunctional family, especially the hurt and the confusion when things are not as they appear to be.


"Healing Myself, One Rhyme at a Time is a memoir in poem and story… a hero’s journey that inspires us to find our way to healing and wholeness.… It is raw, it is honest, it is love.”
—Shelley Morningsong,
singer/songwriter

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jun 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483410722

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Sivoli

Copyright © 2014 Donna Sivoli.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission from the publisher and the author and copyright holder, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1071-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1073-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1072-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906626

Lulu Publishing Service shall retain all rights to this book design and its design files, but will have no claim on any files originally submitted to them by the author which includes author’s creative work and photographs.

The author and copyright holder, Donna Sivoli, shall retain all rights to the original files and photographs submitted to Lulu Publishing Services for inclusion in this book, but will have no claim to the books’ design nor any of the design files.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 05/23/2014

Note: Poems & Short Stories, Volume X currently in work. © ®

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my parents, Paul and Nellie Bland; to my beloved husband, DJ, who passed away March 11, 2011 – he was so much like my dad and made me laugh every day; and to my children, Shelley, Kimberleah, David, Sean, Suzanne and Joseph who I call my six treasures; and to my grandchildren Jason, Sarah, Jordan, Michael, Nathaniel, Zachariah, Sierra and Brianna. Through love, laughter, and tears – you have all inspired me to write and I love you more than I can ever express.

A special thank you to Barbara Perkins for all your encouragement. You and I are sisters by choice and that is the very best kind.

ABOUT ME

"I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist and this book is not meant to be a self-help book. It is simply the result of about 60 years of writing in a diary, journal, multiple notebooks, tablets, napkins, and sometimes the palm of my hand or my arm if I wasn’t near paper when the need to write came over me. Though I was tempted, I have not yet written on any bathroom walls or toilet paper. But then, I’m not finished yet so there’s still time and there are still bathroom walls and toilet paper out there.

I was born December 23rd, 1940 – two days before Christmas. When my parents brought me home from the hospital, there was an older brother, Bill, waiting for me. There was another older brother who was 13 years old at that time, but he was living with my grandmother. His name was Jimmy and he lived with grandma because she wouldn’t give him up to live mom and dad, but then, that is another story – perhaps a whole book! On Christmas day 1940, my mother decided to name me Donna Sue and from the day I was born until the day he died 1953, my dad called me Suzy Q and used to sing to me Put Your Shoes on, Lucy (don’t you know you’re in the city) because as a toddler, I always ran around without my shoes. I still don’t like to wear shoes but the markets won’t let me in without ’em!

I grew up in Southern California in the suburbs of Los Angeles with my parents, brothers and my maternal grandparents. Dad was an electrician and mom was a homemaker until she was forced to go to work when I was about 11. My precious father passed away when I was 13 years old and I continued life’s journey without him. It was a really tough journey.

My brothers were often given the task of taking care of me and they had a strong influence on my life, my trust issues and my perception of the world. I didn’t find out that one brother was schizophrenic until I was about 23 and I didn’t know my other brother was a heroin addict until I was in high school, but mom raised me to think they were both normal. In other words, I grew up not having a clue what normal was nor did I develop a healthy idea of appropriateness or self value. I had to crash and burn later in life before I could learn about those traits. I always thought it was my fault, that I was a bad girl and deserved all the terror that I suffered at the hands of my brothers. My mother, who was a rage-aholic, favored her two sons over me so when she was overwhelmed with life or if I didn’t follow her instructions to the letter, she would whip me with her hands, a belt, a coat hanger, a willow switch or whatever was near enough to grab. My father worked two and three jobs to support the family so he never saw any of this because he was gone so much and I was taught not to tell. Weekends were wonderful! Dad was home and I was safe when he was there. I guess I’ve been trying to heal these wounds sort of one rhyme at a time for years because paper was the only thing that I could ever talk to without fear of being confronted or beaten. Verbalizing these issues to another human being during the years I was growing up was just not done. My mother beat it into me that girls were supposed to be quiet and do their chores. There was no Dr. Phil so, I wrote poems - lots and lots of poems. When I was a kid on 134th street, I would write things and bury them in the back yard so nobody would see them. I wonder if I ever dug them all up?

I grew up the best I could but I was always attracted to abusive people and I even married some of them. I brought six children into the world and they were the only good things that came out of those bad marriages. Unfortunately, I raised those beautiful children before I experienced any healing of my own issues and I often wonder how they turned out so great. These stories and poems plus some very intense personal counseling with professionals are how I managed to heal from a damaged childhood and now, I’d like to share my poetic diary with you. As I said, I am not a doctor of the mind and spirit, but if you relate to any of my stories and poems, maybe it will encourage you to consult a professional who can help you dig through your own emotional and spiritual hell just as I did.

Donna Sivoli

CONTENTS

Chapter 1   Growing Up With My Birth Family

Chapter 2   Relationships – Frogs, Princes And Aliens

Chapter 3   The Depressions And The Insanity

Chapter 4   My Search For God

Chapter 5   Trying To Heal My Damaged Spirit

Chapter 6   Finally! A Frog That Turned Into A Prince!

Chapter 7   Mourning The Loss Of My Prince

Chapter 8   Me And My Kids – We Had To Grow Up Together

Chapter 9   Trying To Find Me

Chapter 10   Growing Old And Facing Death

Chapter 11   Other Poems And Stories Because I Can’t Stop Writing

Chapter 12   They Sound Like Lyrics To Me

CHAPTER 1

Growing Up With My Birth Family

The Closet

There was a little girl

Who was scared and had no fun

So she hid inside the closet

Until the violence was done.

Sometimes she hid all day,

Concealed in all her fright,

Beneath blankets in that closet

From morning ’til late at night.

Silent Anger

I grew up with a wonderful father. When he was home, I was safe.

Unfortunately, he died when I was 13 and my safety died with him.

I was left with a raging mother and two brothers with diseases.

One had schizophrenia and the other was a heroin addict, a pimp and a thief.

My mother was partial to boys no matter what they did.

I didn’t know my oldest brother was a drug addict until after my father died.

She kept that from me. She also said there was nothing wrong with my other brother

So I grew up thinking they were both normal.

It was my job to clean up after my brothers since Mom worked nights.

The drug addict didn’t live with us but he felt no guilt about breaking in

To steal our expensive musical equipment.

My mother knew all the hock shops so we usually got them back.

Eventually.

Nobody stood up to mom, not if you were a girl anyway.

Jim could negotiate with her and Bill