Rebuild This City

It’s going to get better. We won’t argue anymore. That’s what she told me the first time I came home from the hospital after severe depression over my family’s situation. It wasn’t but a few short hours and she again held my sister by the hair.

She lied that day and many days after yet it is her voice I bow too as if she herself is a prophet. Why do I listen to her voice for truths about myself when all she’s ever said and done to me has been based on falsehood?

There’s a song that says, “We built this city on rock and roll.” My mother attempted to prevent me from building a sense of self. She built the city that is me on a foundation of falsehood. I need to rebuild and maintain the sense of self I was denied early on.

I understand why it was necessary to strip me of dignity and respect. I understand why she needed to peal away any belief I had that I could survive separate from her. With a sense of self I’d defy her. I’d tell her no. I’d stand up instead of kneel. Her lies kept me small, hungry and willing to be lead by and for her. She was a master abuser but a poor architect.

This is a live performance of Back to Good by Matchbox 20. These words are hard to hear sometimes which is why I hardly ever listen to the song but the man can sing and his lyrics are gripping.

“Everyone here, is wondering what it’s like to be with somebody else
Everyone here’s to blame, everyone here
Get’s caught up in the pleasure of the pain, everyone hides
Shades of shame, but looking inside we’re the same, we’re the same
And we’re all grown now, but we don’t know how
To get it back to good

Everyone here, knows everyone here is thinking ’bout somebody else
It’s best if we all keep this under our heads
I couldn’t tell, if anyone here was feeling the way I do
But it’s over now, and I don’t know how, it’s over now
There’s no getting back to good ”

Rebuild This City-Wednesday, March 25, 2009 – 12:14midnight EST