The Johnstown Musicians' Society

 The Johnstown Music Society is right down town

It resides in a mansion of sorts: four stories, six bedrooms

And an old woman lives there, A Clarinet Player, and she teaches all of the reed instruments

And she plays them all too - every one, every size, every kind

And she chainsmokes cigarettes

And she teaches

In the 60's when she moved to the mansion it housed 15 musicians who moved there from all over the country and they went in together and they bought a mansion

And they made music

and they taught music

And they cultivated a culture of excellence, just those few, in that tiny city in the mountains.

The high schools became known for music. And for winners when it came to music.

And they were thriving and they were happy.

And the Clarinet Player lived among them and they all traded cigarettes and war stories and played in union pits for musical theatres and they sat on the porch in rockers and laughed about making mistakes in a culture where you don't make them.

There were music stands filled with music. There was a living room of music. There were shelves and shelves of music. There were photographs of instruments and floors filled with sheets and sheets and sheets and sheets of Music.

The Clarinet Player sits on the porch in the year 2022 and smokes a cigarette and there are six other chairs rocking mildly. Empty and mildly in the wind of the winter. 

No smoking in the house: 

"the students won't like it" - (the parents really, sometimes you share a cigarette with a kid, sometimes, because it's the culture).

In the year 2022 she checks the thermostat of the central heating and sets it at 66 and sits in the living room where the fireplace is vacant save stacks of music for brass musicians, none of whom reside here,

 and she laughs a little because of the time she had sex with a trumpet player she never intended to continue with past breakfast, but she was glad to have a trumpet in the mix and he stayed on a few years, just not in her bedroom.

She drinks a cup of coffee and the sun slants inside on the ancient green carpet that's been the same since - since she arrived with her backpack and her instrument and that's it and never looked back on Ohio and the suburbs.

Her hair on her shoulders in braids sitting on the floor in a circle with The Greats

Music trickling out onto the creek out back and down the river

A city full of music

A symphony they made from scratch in their kitchen over coffee and pancakes.

Her glasses slip down over her nose.

She knows what it's like to age:

The way you extend yourself somehow into your ninth decade and the people who made you slide back into memory. Just the wind now, in the rockers.

The Ducks, Unsolicited

 We moved to Johnstown, Pennsylvania when I was 7 and we lived in the outskirts in a tiny coal town called Windber, the backwards of Berwin, the Coal Company

And the mines were still open - at least two of them, and my friends at school had fathers who were miners, and the mountains were cut in deep purple ridges you could see when the sun set and there was a loud motor speedway and the religion was high school football and the water in the creek ran yellow.

You didn't touch it: The Water

No ducks in it. No fish. No crayfish. No oysters.

And the smell was Sulphur and it smelled like houses

Houses were places for Ouija boards and sleepovers and dares to run naked down 10th Street

We learned about global warming and acid rain in the third grade

I rode my mountain bike down the coal slag

I stayed away from The Water

In 10th grade I moved closer to Johnstown Proper after the mill closed

I read in the paper we were the #1 most depressed city in the nation

But the football games stayed the same and there was money for uniforms

And the band played

And you could rent an instrument

The 1970's carpet in the high school looked like all the other schools I knew about, maybe nicer

I did forensics and swim team

The YMCA was dirty but massive

I smell chlorine like the Sulphur and I smell the slush in the winter and it mingles with the radiator heating in the living room and we grill out in summer and we wade in a creek now and then - not so yellow but no one has a job now and my friend who wanted to be a doctor settled for driving the UPS van and the mall was bulldozed to make room for Walmart.

I remember it used to have a merry-go-round and a pinball machine where I had the high score for three weeks

I couldn't wait to leave it

Escaping was the purpose of everyone pushing their kids into education and 98% of us went to college because our parents knew - they knew that grilled cheese and a can of Campbell's wasn't comfort food, it was poverty, but we ate hot dogs and macaroni and cheese from boxes and played in the backyard in hand-me-downs and we drank from the hose and we washed our cars in the driveway and learned the value of working hard because that was life, 

it was life and everybody did it - 

right?

I got a degree elsewhere and I left it because of the memories that stung -

(the stolen parking lot kiss and the backseat make out and the time we stole Jackie Pepe's mother's concrete goose that she dressed in a yellow raincoat and the time we tic-tacked the neighbors and egged the science teachers house and trick or treated in the "rich" neighborhood to get whole Hershey bars)

not the money;

When I drove past the places it made my heart crinkle in a way that made me know I had to leave it.

I went back for Christmas and all the mines were closed.

And the next year The Water ran brown.

And the next year The Water ran clear.

And the next year 

The Ducks came,

 Unsolicited.

Inner Child; Inner Adolescent

 Part of the Light that used to carry me

Died out a long time ago.

Who were You?

My Inner Child of sorrow

You wept from inside a closed box

The lid taped shut from the outside by some monster

I don't blame you that you were frightened

There was no one who could hold your hand

You were so brave inside that box

I don't blame you for staying inside

Even when the tape came unglued in a span of time that stretched from hours to days to years and many many months of weeping

Those dark corners were so familiar

Why would you ever peak outside into the actual brightness of the actual sun?

You made your own light

You lined up Crayola markers in the guest room because you liked the way they looked

Rainbow in a row; no colours missing,

You were so quiet

It was your secret space,

Your secret rainbow

Because no one around you would allow you to let out the Real Rainbow inside,

Who are you now?

I coax you from the outside because I need you

I need you to come out and remind me how kites fly and how to pick blackberries - can you remind me of the Good Memories? I am so lost in the bad ones.

I am so stuck on this continent of fear,

But you were so brave - even inside that box you braved the wind - you sang with courage,

You stepped up and you filled in the box next to "choir" when Mom said you couldn't sing - how did you get there and how did you meet up with Adolescent Me?

I'd like to see you both holding hands at my Wedding where I lost that Adolescent and traded her in for some kind of Adulting,

What happened to both of you?

I am 41 years old and I am so ripe for the plucking,

I think about the typewriter keys in our basement when Adolescent and Inner Child stared down and Inner Child loved the sound and Adolescent loved the story...

Maybe I can coax you with YouTube coffee shop ambient rain? Or does the coffee smell remind you too much of our mother?

Why does rain make us feel so safe?

Mom used to sing that song. Remember? Raindrops Keep Feeling on My Head...

We knew her Inner Child once, I think.

We reached out a hand to her, and she screamed.

But she was just afraid,

I hear you tell me,

She was just afraid.

The Light in You

Sees the Light in Me

We could meet up again, couldn't we?

With a Cyclone Cone from the theme park covered in strawberries,

I'd share it with you,

We'd share it,

We'd be brave enough to ride the Round Up, you and me;

Our friend is gonna vomit,

But we are gonna hold on tight:

We are gonna make it through the Tilt O'Whirl of our healing

And embrace in the warmth of a Mabon Fire.

We can do it, You and Me. The three of us. Warm cider and a blanket. 

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Struggling Mother.

 I remember your tiny footprint

And thinking that we would bond forever

We would listen to music in the car

And I would tell you how to talk to boys

And how to keep yourself sacred

Not sexually, but emotionally

To take care of yourself

For real

Not just for everyone else's benefit

And today your rage slammed door screamed at father hurt me when you slammed your body against mine and

I feel helpless on a level I didn't know existed.

It doesn't matter how hard I battle codependency

Or my own demons

Or the boundaries I learn to set with my parents

Your wild hair flying

Drinking hose water

Defiantly wearing a purple skirt when I didn't know if I could handle a girly girl

I don't know you

Mohawk Boy

Hoodie to hide your body

I want to clutch your hand

I want to take you walking along the ocean just the two of us looking for shells in the sunrise morning: do you remember that day? Where has my wild faerie child gone? How deeply is she buried?

My Mother in Telephone Calls.

 I sip this tea: herbal, acai berry, ginseng:

Desperate for healing

But mostly overwhelmed:

What does it mean to be a Mother?

I live strive rise up every morning wanting to heal myself and all the past generations

Lay this mantle on both my shoulders

Struggle even just to walk and wonder: How did I get here?

I speak to my mother on the phone and she reminds me

That parents in her day took their children to the cellar and beat them with straps

"Not that I'm saying to do that, but I'm just saying", she says.

I know it

I know and I remember

"I feared my parents," she says.

Yes, I know. You made me fear you too: I feared you.

And so when the towel is not hung up in the bathroom

And the candy wrappers are not in the trash

And I creep into my child's bathroom at two in the morning to clean the toilet even when it is their job am I healing generational trauma or spoiling my teenagers into oblivion: did we gain so much from our pain?

Better to sit across from your teen with hot cocoa than have them hide in their room from you, pronounce the words yes ma'am or yes sir with trembling lips until one day they stride confidently past you because they grew up and realized that you were nothing good for them and you didn't know what the actual fuck you were doing.

I know you did your best.

What you thought was best.

I feared you.

So I was obedient.

Was it worth it?

Ocean.

 I stare at the past like I stare at myself in this mug of tea

You hurt me.

And there are times now when I can't square with that because I look back and I thought we were building something

I thought that something would be built...

And it is, yeah? It is now and so I should be happy.

Past is past and means less than nothing

And yet I know that you did the things you did to me and I still want you: why?

The new me, the emerging me, the one crying inside the cocoon wants free of it.

"I wish I met you now. I wish that person back then was someone different. Someone not me."

I still mean that.

Because if it hadn't been me I wouldn't feel like something was endlessly wrong with me for wanting you.

I'd like to turn it all over like a pretty river rock

I'd like to look back at the me from then and laugh at her and call her foolish because it would be an easy thing, wouldn't it? And yet.

She wasn't. 

She was just... tired.

A child throwing rocks into the ocean trying to skip them and sometimes, sometimes they did skip, and that made all those other wasted stones worth it.

I see you now and you're endless skipping so far out onto the horizon it's like I'll never see the end of it

And yet there's this part of me scared I will. See the end. But it'll just be so much deeper.

Blood Draw

It is not fair that I have to go through an entire day of trauma after a blood draw because it reminds my brain of what it means when I say "yes" with my lips but my body doesn't want to.

You didn't check in with me
Because you didn't care
You weren't taught consent
You wanted what you wanted

Women don't feel pleasure

So I fake it and I say "yes" and [I don't know what I'm doing]

::laugh emoji::

Honestly it's not even your fault

I blame the Church
I blame my [your] parents
I blame a white Jesus hanging on a cross at St. Anthony's, staring - I didn't know what it meant to sit on the side with Mary,

When I go to the lab I tell the nurse "I might cry during; I don't know why",

And she laughs a little and says that lots of people cry

Lots of people cry
Lots of people

"I'm a grown woman, I know it's silly"

Lots of people cry. Lots of people.

The Difference

I wish I could express the difference

This year
vs.
Last year

I still wait for the other shoe to drop and you just keep holding it higher

That's what Pride feels like

Me Proud of you.

On Tara Reade, Joe Biden, and Groping

Someone said it's uncommon:
What happened to Tara.
Or.
It's "just groping".

I think about every day in middle school
Boys who "just groped" my 11 year old body.

The 17 year old in the car.
Xmas dance.
Favorite Dress.
Just Groping.

Did you think it wasn't common?
We don't come forward
Because shit like it happens
every day.
Too Common.
So common we apologize for it.
We're sorry we existed in a female body.




*This poem premiered on Instagram: @missybell_arts

Codependent Polyamorous Pandemic

Night comes like fetters
I don't get enough sleep
I think you hate me
I don't take my meds on time
I think you hate me
I spend so much time
Thinking you might hate me
I would miss it if you actually did

I want to take apart this old camera
And I feel like I need to let you do it for me
Because it makes you feel needed
Necessary
And I look at you when you look at my wedding picture
and part of me feels guilty because that was one of the best days of my whole life
Everything was how I thought it should be besides the food
We didn't get anything but chicken fingers:
Ironic that we don't eat meat now

I don't know how to do much
I don't know how to do anything
I put words on paper and hope that someone will read them
And the dark void I thrive in will get a little lighter
I just keep reaching out my arms
I hope you'll catch me -
Catch me
I don't want to keep falling
But somehow I'm falling all the time

I need new pants from crawling toward people I love on my knees
I've gotta learn how to stand up
Stop being shackled by afternoons where everything I am is too much for everyone around me
It's just in my head
It's just in your head, Missy.
Missy, like a slur, not like my name
Girls trying to put things together and being told they shouldn't be using tools at all.
Codependency is a trap
Like drinking
But worse
Because you keep on taking it with you
And alcohol, at least sometimes, you get to leave inside the bar.

They told me if I prayed hard enough Jesus would take away the sad feelings
But they told me that I needed to be needed to be loved
So how do you undo that sad story of oppression
Oh, Jesus, do you love me when I ask for things that I want
When I want things and I ask and you get mad...
Do you get mad?
How much of Jesus in my head is my father
My mother
The wanting
How much of my lover is my father
My partner
Jesus
God
Where does the me meet out of it? Where does the me fit into it?
Where does the me end up when they tell me they just want me to be happy?
I don't know how to be happy
What is that: happy?
Joy looks like guilt to me.
I'm just looking for a shackle key
Keep thinking if I look hard enough you'll have it,
It's probably in my pocket
But I can't seem to reach it.