My botanist turned preacher of a father
spewed predictably from the Sunday pulpit
diatribes, tirades, invectives, and Jesus
while my stone faced mother
and our row full of sisters
sat glazed in the second row,
taking notes.

I always recognized
the particular pitch
of his voice from the pulpit
preaching about penitence
because of the identical intonation
used to vituperate us
before church, or any day.
It became easier to drown out.

The insidious lessons
I learned from my father
were harder to ferret out:
You are not in control.
You have no power.
You have no inherent value.
You do not choose. Anything.

Internalized. 15 years later,
I realize that I believe
in core perspective of self:
I am not in control
I have no power
I have no inherent value
I do not choose. Anything.

The revelation might be that
I am not fundamentally flawed
so much as my deeply rooted view of self
was nurtured from before I remember
to believe that I am not
enough,
worthy,
powerful,
my own.

What if I believe that I am
powerless because I am broken,
broken because I am powerless,
not because I am either
but because I got punked
in the most sinister of ways.

What if what I thought to be my illness,
as integral to me as my blood
is really a mind fuck
so masterfully woven in my psyche
that I considered it native.

I dismissed him years ago
never realizing that
my views –
of myself as broken;
of my efforts as futile;
of my power as nil –
were a learned script,
a poem I absorbed before language,
a premise assumed to be true.

And if not innate but learned,
the possibilities of unlearning are
arguably easier than being reborn.

I faulted the seed,
not considering the soil.
But can I reimagine my dirt,
shop for a different compost?
Will the transition to new supply break me,
or is that just another lie
entwined into this whole scheme
that keeps me tethered?