At eighteen, when I wrote Life's Tools, I was just beginning to get an inkling of the difficulties I would be facing in the coming years. Flashbacks and panic attacks introduced themselves to my life at this age. By sharing my memories of incest with my oldest sister, I jumped off a cliff believing my family would catch me, and I found only empty air. 

I crash landed, a hard and painful landing that shattered every part of my identity, my safe world, and my reality. Even as I gasped for air to breathe, even as I realized that my life as I thought it was, had never really existed in the first place, I knew that God would help me and eventually I would be OK. 

  At the time I wrote this poem I didn't like or read poetry.  I don't really know where my poems came from. My only explanation is that my Neshama, or a very wise part of me, wrote them to me.  Ironically, Life's Tools was published in a local magazine, in the community I grew up in, over twenty years ago.

Life's Tools

Heavy metal tools

tumble down on me

I reach out to catch them

as they fall

I grasp them tightly

but I don't know why

the unbearable strain

on my arms and chest

tell me to drop them

they are too heavy

but I won't let them go

and I feel myself

falling...falling

then darkness and despair

overcome me

Awakening...

I find I did not let go

the tools are embedded

in my tightly clenched fists

slowly carefully

I stand up

slowly...slowly

I learn to move with them

and slowly

as my wounds heal

my muscles become accustomed to their weight

until I do not feel

their heaviness

only their security

I am stronger

I am better armed

I will keep these tools

they are mine for life

I did not drop them

I could not drop them

God sent them my way

because He knows I will need them

to build.