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Attempt at My Manifesto
by Cesca Janece Waterfield August 2006 I'm gonna write it, if I keep alive long enough to. I will tell the truth, because I am exhausted. Charles Warden says that too much info freaks people out. I am sorry. My mental health freaks me out. Memories and loud noises freak me out. I hope not to break down in public anymore. Because trailing down Cary Street making yourself smile so you don't frighten people sucks. So does finally just abandoning pretense and telling those kind people at Blue Mountain, a man with a dear face named Charles, and, forgive me, I have forgotten the sweet girl, but I think her name was April, telling them, "I'm sorry. I brought nothing illegal or harmful here, I'm just a little sad, but I called someone." Telling the truth might weed out the motherfuckers, because if you don't like me, I don't blame you, but please move along in peace. If you can't tell the truth, I cannot keep you in my life. I have shit to say about myself that is killing me. And until I've got money and guts enough to sit in a therapist's office, speak is what I am going to do. Abortion does not leave your head. I love children. That's why I won't have any. Because I cannot parent. I have hated myself for as long as I can remember, when I wasn't trying to be big britches to feel better, finding it worse. But I'm trying to admit, and therefore let go of the past, because I think I must ask: When I was passed out as a young woman, was I able to "make the right choice"? I believe the answer is, No. When I hated my own guts and did fucked up, self destructive things, and I must admit, destructive things; was I admiring a shiny shelf laden with products, and selecting the one marketed to me? When my father took off the doors to every room on the floor where I slept and pissed and showered, was I capable of making decisions? When he kicked me in my crotch across an open garage on a beautiful day? Did volition apply as I set sail over concrete he cherished more than his girl? What was the verdict as I prayed to daddy's god that I'd land inside the picture book of San Francisco I kept always in view as I tried like hell to roll the god damned hose up the way he required? Turn the right knob for water to save him heating costs? Use as little water as possible in the pan and ALWAYS APPLY A LID to prevent water evaporate from saturating, and therefore, rendering less effective the insulation, incurring him greater heating and cooling bills? What went through my mind as he approached a ten year old, literally ushered her into the library - which is sposed to mean something other than a place to lean rifles - to tell her he listened as she shit, and she uses too much toilet paper? I still hear the ding of the white timer set upon the bathtub to ensure that my bathing was limited to two minutes. I do not remember which words he pointed out that I'd misspelled in my aged seven diary, in which I dreamt of sweet boys who inspired my curiosity. I do remember how my curiosity for them changed after that tete-a-tete. Id est, Et cetera, et al, ad infinitum. I do not aspire to write art, here. This is just me trying to save my life and attempt to ensure that the souls who have left us with less by being taken by people who need to be put away forever, did not die for nothing. Yes, I have considered how presumptuous it is to talk about people I don't know. But this flower child knows that their departure, which they didn't choose, because they were building and loving, means some part of all of us is gone. It sucks that some have to see a cost to THEMSELVES, a bill in their name, to care. I did, though, I admit it. But whatever makes us care, we need more of, I think. When my mother handed her fourteen year old a ten spot and shoved me out the door, with the words, "Go, just go. He will kill you," and I wandered around dark streets of Dahlgren, a NAVY BASE, for chrissakes, was I making a decision? With some of my problems, I was born. But getting tossed around and pounded... Seeing my sister Sayna Marie, who was already severely epileptic, get hit with a cast iron fry pan so hard the handle broke, did that make me a responsible citizen? Was it my fault? Am I blameless. HELL NO. But I believe down in my gut that violence is the source of every tiny piece of hell that ever existed, and that keeps on going and going. Daddy, you never read my work, but you revere music, and I love you more than you may ever know. My dad was beaten, saw his father hold a fucking pistol on his wife, the mother of "his" children, to make her IRON HIS SHIRT FASTER. My daddy was once a boy who planted tomatoes in that forsaken place, GROWING something to say yes to life. A growed up piece of shit crushed them with crates of commerce on purpose. Ridiculed his children at the dinner table for EATING. Daddy endured more more more... shot at in Vietnam, shot DOWN in Vietnam, did I mention why anybody was SENT THERE? cuz my daddy made TWO TOURS. But to try to focus: while carrying bodies and bodies and bodies, so many, he needed a fucking helicopter to heave em into the masticating mouths of greedy god damned leaders who worship nothing and call faith more valuable than science, sincerity, or decency. So I don't even blame my dad. BUT... I must talk about it or I will fall asleep forever on somebody's floor, in anybody's bed, or with eyes blind to the back of the driver's head in a cab seat. There is a reason I woke up in alleys in Southeast D.C. with gang bangers who may or may not have offed somebody any ole time. I have to make a reason to be alive. Because far too many who were simply living with integrity and imagination are gone. I have made up a reason to live. I think I have something to say. I've never believed it in my life. I had an anti-fan club in my own bloodline, because they were on a mailing list they didn't sign up for, too. My parents love me. I am lucky. But their own histories have fucked me up. Seeing these beautiful girls buried has awakened me. And I cannot die until I say something, and please goddess, I hope I get to fall in love with a man who can and does LOVE and I pray I can love him back. I do not know. I don't remember writing it on my shoe, but on my Chucks it says, "In Manitoba's I woke up," and it has the symbol of Woman, ¡â Because when Lisa told me Kate had been "found," I don't know what to say about that moment. I had only recently encountered her, but her personhood inspired me deeply enough to tell her man while she used the bathroom, "That girl is AWESOME." Which was apparent by more than this: her bemused and darling smile, her style and charisma, something that sparked forth as I turned from my loved ones' door, having found it locked. At that moment, she stepped with vigor up the steps and said, "Oh, you need in?" as she extracted a key from her bag. I remembered her viscerally as Lisa told me from Richmond that she was missing, I stood on a street corner in the East Village with absolutely nothing. I had so much nothing, a stranger stopped me and asked if I was okay. I told him, n. When I called and Lisa told me later that Kate had been "found," I made a decision that I would try to say something true. I hope I am strong enough cuz it's gonna suck. But I have only one life. And I swear, I want to commit it to girls and women, while treating men and boys well. I may fuck up. But I will try. Christian, who, I'm gonna say it, man, treated people in this house badly on more than a few occasions, as we forgave and tried to tend, and believed... Christian used to say before she was taken, "All you can do is try to do the next good thing." That's why I loved him. When he's ready, I believe his heart will heal. I hope so. Here is what I feel sensitive about saying, because I did not know them. But I have to, because their deaths broke something in me. Please forgive me if I speak of people I did not know. I would never ever presume to speak FOR them. But in the interest of my healing, and as I try to heal something else, I would be grateful the allowance to say this: I went to World of Mirth today and tried to say thank you to that family for what they created for us and for themselves. I've been barely able to pass it before today. I was determined walk past without exclusively mourning the tremendous loss of people who, by all accounts and by THE ACTS THEY DELIBERATELY CHOSE IN LIFE, were exceptional. Today, I wanted to not mourn, and instead, embrace what they made. I bought glitter heart glasses, and I've never been a pink heart girl. I bought a cat bookmark the manufacturer named Romeo. I bought it because black cats make me think of my grandmother, Jeannette Bauguess, because when she died, black cats started approaching me with gentle, expressive eyes. Jeanette knows a bit about violence. I like that the cat is called Romeo, a lover, and that Romeo is a male name, because nasty male grave diggers better smarten up. Women who have been taken are somewhere looking down, and as gods, they will damn grave diggers into invisibility and famine. I do not want any people to have died for nothing. But since I live here, and love here, I particularly do not want these people to have passed as we propagate more of the same. And no, I don't want to die for nothing, and if I can speak for what matters - peace and decency and things that truly AFFIRM LIFE - I will die anyway, but hopefully with a heart that is sad to see the world disappear, because she fulfilled it, instead of chewing it and its inhabitants, up into pieces. Who do I think I am? Talking about people I don't know? I will say what is true - I am scared that if I heal, and therefore stop being a dumbass, that I won't be able to write anymore. But at some point, I have to make a choice, since for so long, I don't think I was granted the option. Do I care more about my self and its gratification? Or doing good. Guess we'll see, because writing and music keep me alive. But is that really the most important thing. Hell, yeah. I love this sweet old world, Lucinda amen. But, choose. Love is a decision. And the thing is, that I just realized, I have only spoken of my father's pain. Lemme tell ya, my mother, Janet Marie, has stood and walked the best she can, through HELL. But she rarely hit me, so I've not mentioned her. Woman is more of what this place needs, sorry, it's the truth. She endured her own pain, and thought of love. Her ignoring abuse was not active, it was belief that shit can get better. When women who believe shit can get better ACT, and yeah, I am talking to myself, cause since leaving Boston, I have not marched, but WOMEN NEED TO TALK. I am somebody alive who has a throat and I am going to use it. I am going to try to use it properly.
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