Don't Read This/ Not Poetry Poem by Julia Luber

"I won't talk to you for a week unless you go to a psychiatrist."
And then she proceeded not to talk to me, play the 'silent treatment'
on me, not even answer my questions. Ignoring me completely.
Under the roof that I organized for us. Under the room mate situation
that I organized. And how comfortable she was at sticking to her sadistic
and abusive and illogical and logistically incorrect commandment.
How comfortable she was in my discomfort and feeling of vague but
quiet desperation. Because I did not really know what I was up against.
After ten long years of being "best friends" she establishes this control
commandment over my nerves, over my senses, over my trusting openness
and my need for communication and comfort. As if I had never cried and
rambunctiously sobbed from some 'emotional hurt' of some guy I had some
crush on 'hurting' me before. I had! She knew I did this kind of thing occasionally
That it was part of my make up and personality. That I would get dramatically
emotional about some guy and use the insulting opportunity for a dramatic
catharsis. She knew this verbatim that this was one dimension of my personality.
She was so comfortable bossing me around and subjugating me to her commandment
and imposure. As if I was nothing, nobody to her -just a 'slave' for her to tell what
to do and how to behave. Of course I don't remember Everything, and I am trying to
remember vaguely what passed through me that morning when she said that. There
was a time before when we had gone out dancing one night in West Hollywood when
we were in high school. We were all dressed up and excited to be out. Actually, strike
that: we were going to a play at the Music Center. But we had stopped in West Hollywood
at a drug store. And we were in the parking lot. Maybe we had gone in to buy mints or
something like that. Mints or gum. And I don't know what we were talking about but
she suddenly spat at me, "Why don't you even try to be more perfect? " I had never
been around people like this before. I told her off for an hour or so the whole drive
to the Music Center. We must have been in my green Peaugeot and there must have
been a lot of traffic. And maybe it wasn't an hour, maybe it was only twenty minutes.
All I know is that I yelled at her and told her off the whole time. I have no understanding
exactly what Iwas talking about in reflection and memory. But I remember we entered the
theater from two opposite sides and sat down together in her very good seats-probably
only people who had donated a certain amount of money to the establishment. And we
sat through the play. And there was another time I forget exactly, that Ibroke down and
cried about some guy I had a mega crush on at the Mardi Gras at UCLA. I think that bitch was
with me that night. I don't exactly remember. But I broke down and cried about some guy
I had a crush on. And there were several other times I cried to her. She knew I had a need
for catharsis and tears. She knew I had a method with whatever my hidden pains were.
That I would break down occasionally and let it all out. That it felt good and it worked for
me at the time. I did not know she was out to kill me deep in and had procured our friendship
strictly to ultimately destroy me. I did not know she had a vengeance vendetta against
me and would corner me into something she KNEW was HIGHLY DANGEROUS. No, she did
not know perhaps how HIGHLY DANGEROUS it is for some people, but she knew perfectly well
that it could be VERY BAD for me. She saw a mutual friend of ours becoming Anorexic and completely Detached when going to a psychiatrist. She knew it could be a bad thing for some.
She also saw and knew of our mutual friend in high school who was LOCKED UP FOR NINE LONG MONTHS by the psychiatric system when we were in high school, and that
it was a system of that order of considerable TORTURE on some. Soemthing to truly and
rightfully be AFRAID OF and TO AVOID! But she used it instead as a Load on My Conscience
at precisely the time that I should have been focusing on a career in college. She triggered
me into a state of reckless fear and the need to escape. Escape I did. She triggered me
into a life of avoiding her COMMAND CONTROL personality consumed with THREAT AND SUBJUGATION. Okay, so she did not know my grandmother was found DEAD at the bottom
of Mulholland only two weeks after I was born and that this happened when her sister had tried to commit her to a psychiatric institution for using uppers and downers during
the sixties and so she had committed her to a mental institution. My grandmother escaped and was searching for her car where she had last left it up on Mulholland and was then
found dead, eaten up by coyotes at the the bottom of Mulholland. That is not exactly suicide. She could have fell over an improperly gated ridge. Threre is a lot of that up there. She could have been killed. Was it around the time of the Black Dahlia murders? She had black hair
and certainly fit the image of one of the victims of that monster killer. Et cetera Et centea.
And now she was cornering a best friend by Threat commandment into psychiatric torture,
And her "WORD" was backboned by near half a billion dollars! Because that's what she was coming into as inheritance around that time. But for me to have my freedom and not to be lassoed into a nightmare of dealing with the psychiatric system was not something she would let for me. For me to have a focus on a career and a future in what I wanted was not something that she wanted for me. No, she wanted my conscience stripped and my ego warped and wrapped up in something that had caused many deaths and that I knew was a significant problem. I will never be done with this poem because the whole problem deteriorated my entire mental structure and put a dark cloud over my existence from then on.
Before that I had had the best boyfriend in the world. After that, I can barely find someone I can feel comfortable with over thirty two years. Before that life worked out magically for me. That cornered me into Suicide and Lock Up. From being able to travel this world alone for six months on several thousand dollars-scared of nothing to being afraid to go out of my apartment in my home town. Wow, did she ever do a number on me. And how I could go on but do not want to. And I am not done, and this is not a poem, but it is always aggravating my mind. And she's come back into my territories and comfort zones thirty two years later to ruin whatever she can of me again! This is not over. I will start again where I left off.But nobody should read this. It is just complaining. Not poetry at all.