Occupying a different space

Where shall she write it so that it can be seen?
This reservoir of self, ever sinking, small enough to fit behind her teeth
fist-clenched
shaking
with anger.

Today a friend and I had a very deep conversation about self-injury and the strange religion
of violence acted out on the body. She spoke of her friend who has an eating disorder, a problem with her temper, a problem being sexually inappropriate, a problem with abusing substances, with frequent illnesses, and now, she has starting cutting herself too.

We sat on a very cold park bench and watched kids play and I thought about all those words and all those problems as played out in one person. I said, she sounds very angry and hurt to me and it sounds as though she doesn't have a safe space to express that which is silenced by and articulated in pain. And yes, that is exactly what I said. People sometimes don't believe I actually talk that way but I do. Stumbling all over my words quite fluidly. :)

What does it mean when we become that compartmentalized and fractured that we begin to purposefully break our bodies, our minds, ourselves or others? Or allow others to do it for/to us?

I wish I had some profound thought or reflection on the matter. Wordlessness frightens me. I wish sometimes for something that could take the shape of hands or some giant listening body, listening with the whole body, like an ocean that could take all that hurt and just give it a space to exist without causing further harm. How do you create that? How do you sustain it?
Some of the most compassionate human beings I know either a. don't have immediate families to take care of or consider "the world" their family (i.e. spiritual leaders/nuns/etc) or b. they are people like most of us who tend to live rather divided. All of this energy spent fighting "the good fight" either demands immense sacrifice by those closest to them and/or sacrifice and at times vice on the part of the person who is trying to maintain such an exhaustive effort. I like to think that perhaps that fraction of a second spent listening to someone might help more than me talking over, to and around them. I like to think that words can replace and challenge that which is deemed unspeakable so that people like the girl I mention above, can find other ways of coping with emotions rather than hurting herself in so many ways. I think too though that you have to get to the root of the issue and the larger ramifications of silencing to see how you are silenced and where and when and how you silence others and where and when. My silence stems most often than not, from fear. Fear of my anger. Fear of pain. Fear of failure. Also fear of hurting others. I wrote recently about abortion and my anger over that issue is quite strong. Is it fair though in my anger to push someone else into a space where they must defend their views from feeling as though, in doing so, they are defending their selves? One of the biggest difficulties I struggle with is how to relate to an experience or to simply listen, without Othering, patronizing, trying to save or feeling the right to judge? How do you read about genocide, torture, abuse, domestic violence, murder, rape, incest or even self abuse without becoming an unwelcome voyeur into the lives and suffering others are experiencing? I can't step out entirely of this place of privilege that the color of my skin or my access to education affords and truly understand what another is going through that is a different race, ethnicity, gender, class or even religion. So language then becomes a commonplace through which I can try and at least imagine it. Or sympathize. Or empathize. Or get angry, sad, frustrated or motivated. I cannot find ways (with any sort of consistancy anyway) to force my thoughts into your shoes. We seem too small and too large and too awkward for another until whatever good intention or commonality that might've existed is left limping along, cursing every step. This is the way I see efforts of "diplomacy" both in the macrocosmic coccoon of international relations and domestic politics but also diplomacy in the purest sense. Where we bring it home. Where it resides within us as some strange force that says, hey I really want to hear you speak me to me so that I may finally reclaim a voice. A rich wordless space. To occupy a space and not another. To claim an identity rather than having it assigned to you and assumed for you. People talk, but do they listen? People want action and therefore turn words into bullets, podiums, loudspeakers, flags, and foot soldiers but how often does the rhetoric retain any sort of humanistic value? How often does a politican actually speak to you rather than at you or for you? I want to listen. I want to a see a safe space created where people's pain can be heard rather than acted out on themselves or on others. I don't think one person alone can do that though. People have written extensively on creating communities of non-harm, of creativity, but how do you create of truly humanistic socialism of thought? Do you even want to? I'm sure this rant has gone on long enough. I am a wordy soul though and I want to end with some quotes that I've read countless times over the past few days. I wish I had known of Audre Lorde's work before she died and Ginsberg's before he died. I did not. But lately I've found much food for my soul in their words and in their activism and the bridges that they built through their poetry. So these quotes are by Audre Lorde. Thanks for letting me rant. Any thoughts or comments are welcome. I'll try to be less long winded with future postings. peace!

"I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect."--Audre Lorde

"For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us." Audre Lorde

"Once we recognize what it is we are feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy." -- Audre Lorde

quotes from http://www.nedrajohnson.com/audre.htm