Twelve Steps

Terry Kelleher, 1995

When I was born the doctor said, “Mom, if you want I’ll put him back”.
Since those words were spoke, my life’s a joke. Its self esteem I lack.
When I was one, my dad, for fun, threw me way up high.
Though I never fell, you’d never tell, ‘cause now I’m afraid to fly.

I’m maladjusted, co-dependent, afraid to face my fears.
I love too much, express too little, and drink a bit too much beer.
I crave abuse, avoid rejection. My self esteem has drooped.
But, eleven more steps and I’ll be all better.
I’ve joined a self help group.

Though I’m certainly straight and go out on dates, sometimes I do cross-dress.
My shrink says its abuse as a youth, but my memories are repressed.
We’re trying hypnosis, in five a week doses, to find the facts of my past.
And I find in past lives I was one of Henry’s wives, and a pirate they hung from the mast.

I’ve got maladies, phobias, acute and chronic. Tried Prozac and Lithium.
Psychodynamics, Gestalt, behavioral, Freud, Rogers and Carl Jung.
Years of analysis and cognitive therapy. Still I’ve stayed the same.
To be mentally whole now I find that my goal is finding out who I can blame.

I’m suicidal, in denial. I’ve been on Oprah twice.
I over eat, I over sleep, I have dreams about Vincent Price.
I can’t drive on high bridges, or walk in the subway. I hate spiders snakes and bats.
I don’t trust authority, fear all minorities. My only true friend is my cat.

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