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Mixed Messages

Mixed Messages
by Aimee Rae Ellington

MIXED MESSAGES
     MIXED MESSAGES
          MIXED MESSAGES

Dinner is served.
    "All is well."
             All is not well!
    "Stop whimpering! You are fine!"
            I am NOT fine.
                NO, I'M IN PAIN!!!
    "Sit down and eat your supper."
            It hurts to sit down
                   can't you tell
                           didn't you hear my screams
                                    can't you feel my PAIN???

"Clean up your plate.
     Don't you appreciate how hard your mother worked,
          how good she is to fix such a nice meal for you?"
                  I can't eat.
                       I think I'm going to throw up!!!
"Shame on you,
    you naughty little girl,
        not showing appreciation
             for all your mother does for you!"
                  APPRECIATION
                        Mother, where are you?
                            Where are you when I need you?
                            Don't you hear my cries?
                            I need YOU
                            I want YOU
                                  I want love,
                                       not food.

Food wins out.
     Fat sets in.
Perhaps food and fat
     will numb the PAIN.
Perhaps food and fat
     will calm the FEAR.
All is not well.
     But who will hear my cries?
            Who will respond to my pain?


_________________________________________________________________________________

My entire life seems to be nothing but mixed messages. First as a child, now as an adult. But I have to ask myself "who's giving the mixed messages now?" And I have to answer with the resounding response, "Me."

Life is work. Hard and arduous. But I've found that the rest after hard labor is sweeter, more restful, more healing than the idle rest of ignoring the work that needs to be done.
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