Except for Me (navajo poem) by Josh

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Submission Name: Except for Me (navajo poem) dots

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Author:	Josh
ASL Info:	17/nh
Elite Ratio:	5.61 - 276/226/30
Words:	149

Class/Type:	Poetry/Misc
Total Views:	341
Average Vote:	No vote yet.
Bytes:	1019

Description:
A few years ago me and some friends went down to arizona, and worked out on the navajo reservation at Naomi's house, which was a place were troubled kids would go to get away from their alcoholism, troubles parents, voilence, and such and get thrown into religion, but thats another subject. This poem really got me. I was in one of the little girls rooms one day putting together her first "real bed" when i found this in her toybox ripped up. I took it home with me, and this is her poem. She is 9 years old, and watched her mother and father die from alocoholism, and also was molested by her exteremely violent dad. I've been having trouble sleeping lately also becuase of this.. so i felt the need to post it and get the word out about the problems of the navajo people. More for closure i guess than anything, i ask nothing more than understanding. Why anyone would have to endure this is beyond me, and why this constant violent cycle must continue kills me.

Except for Me (navajo poem) dots

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Father and Mother in a room,
Father as he pounds on Mother's beautiful face,
Screams here and there,
Children crying outside the door,
Except for one.
The Father beating on the Mother,
My Mother yelling for help,
Kids wondering what is going on.
As he stops pounding
I finally get the door open
To see my Mother's beautiful face bleeding.
She has terror on her face,
Father has hatred on his,
Kids have fear on theirs
and baby inside Mom
getting beaten
as well as Mom.
The day has gotten worse
Father is mad as a frying pan,
I'm calm
so I try and get in the way of my
Father and Mother.
The day gets older
Father is cooling down
Mom calls the Police,
Soon Mom leaves
and takes younger brother and sisters.
I say "No, don't go!"
And "poof!"
She is gone out of my sight.

Submitted on 2004-12-03 20:11:27 Terms of Service / Copyright Rules
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1: >_<
2: I dunno...
3: meh!
4: Pretty cool
5: Wow!

||| Comments |||
  wow is the only word i can express right now. it's an awesome story. i'm sorry that this goes on there. thank you for bringing it to our attention! great job. you have a great big heart.
| Posted on 2004-12-03 00:00:00 | by MMISS | [ Reply to This ]
  What can you say to this? Children are children, whether white, Navajo, black, Lummi (some of the Indians where I live), Asian or whatever. They long for structure, security, peace and love. When the adults in their lives fail to provide those things, they sow the seeds of future failure.

Realizing that this was written by a 9 year old girl of her own experiences makes it even more powerful. Thank you for posting this.

My advice to you is not to give in to depression over it, but work as hard as you can to help overcome it, even if it's only for one child. You can beat yourself up about it, let your heart become broken by it, and cry all the tears you have over it, but none of those things will change it. As difficult as it is to understand, accept that it happens, then do all you can to keep it from happening. I applaud you for your work with the Navajos and for your caring heart. Keep it up. The world needs more people like you. mae
| Posted on 2004-12-03 00:00:00 | by mae | [ Reply to This ]
  make a promise to ourselves that we will never let this circle of violence perpetuate..we will not stand by and let this happen but what can we do...hope? i guess the only way the only thing that changes when we hear something like this is that we realis how truly [censored]ed up the world is and for a second we wanna be better than that.
| Posted on 2004-12-03 00:00:00 | by k kin | [ Reply to This ]
  This happens with many different people, not just with the Navajo's. Hell, I know someone who almost /died/ from something like this, but luckily the police intervened before she did.

This is a beautiful poem, and the fact that a nine year old girl wrote it makes it even better, in the fact that I can hear her voice coming through this poem. I can only imagine how horrible it was when she did get in the middle, how bad it must have been for her. The sad point is, this happens in billions (maybe even more) of families all over the world, no matter who they are.

Abuse is a really bad incident to cope with. A true story that really sends this message is the David Pelzer story, and the books are "A Child Called "It", "The Lost Boy" and "A Man Named Dave". He was the third worst abuse case in the history of California, and if he was the third then I shudder to think of what the first was. I recommend those books for more on the subject, unless any of you out there have week stomachs at the thought of that happening to a child. I cried at some of the points, to be honest.

Sorry if I sounded preachy up there, but this is a really sad subject. This is a beautiful poem, and it's just sad to think of how this happens out there. I hope that little girl is alright now.

-Meredith
| Posted on 2004-12-03 00:00:00 | by Maki Kyomada | [ Reply to This ]
  the biggest problem with abuse is that it is usually kept secret by the abused until sometimes it is too late to do anything about it. The average person is not trained to see the signs, or if they do, they don't know what to do about it. I remember a time when relatives of my first wife had drinking problems and much abuse went on. We recieved a phone call one night from one of their neighbors that the children (5 of them-all under the age of 7) were out playing in the yard at 10 o'clock at night in the winter with no coats or shoes on. We in turn called family services to report this and to get the children into some shelter. Family services looked after the immediate problem, got the kids into a safe place for the night, but then took them back home the next day telling the parents to smarten up. Like telling them that they were bad and not to do it again. Ha! What we got for this was a threatening phone call from the relatives in question. Family services had told them who had reported them.
We knew the problem persisted, reports filtered back to us through neighbors and friends. It was such a relief when the parents finally parted and the kids were sent off to live with other family members. The kids were separated, but at least still in the same family.
And amazingly, they grew up to be fine adults.
Or at least that's what we see and hope. Who knows what goes on inside their homes?
| Posted on 2004-12-03 00:00:00 | by arkay | [ Reply to This ]
  You might be interested in joining this group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rezlife/

Mostly indigenous peeps. living on or near the rez., but living elsewhere too. There are other people there too. You might like if you are interested in Rez issues.

Mitakuye Oyasin,

Rebecca
| Posted on 2004-12-03 00:00:00 | by pawnee | [ Reply to This ]
  Oh. Wow. This gave me chills. To know a 9 year old little girl had to experience such a horrible thing. To know that it goes on. It is so incredibly sad. It makes me hurt. I recommend reading Daddys girl of mine... its an older piece but relates to this one. Alot. Atleast she had a chance to save her life being in that shelter. But there are so many children who go on living like that.
Thats so sad.
Thankyou.
-Andrya
| Posted on 2004-12-04 00:00:00 | by andrya | [ Reply to This ]
  I am fully aware the navajo people are not the only ones that have this happen to them.. for the Millionth time. I posted it for understanding that the navajo people have it worse... and this is just the beginning to a world wide epidemic, a disease of violence that spreads, and alcohol to cover up stress and poverty. I give in to this only for the truth to be spread, god bless and thanks for the understanding
| Posted on 2004-12-04 00:00:00 | by Josh | [ Reply to This ]

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