To comply is to survive. To survive is to go on living. To live is to hate for the rest of your life. This I understand.
R

this breaks my heart.

Your format speaks volumes. Your words are immeasurable. Good job.

Courageous. Searing. Terribly, terribly sad. Impressive. Helpful, I hope.

Whew. You're tearing yourself inside out, bub. I said earlier that your words can heal. I meant it. I felt the healing power of them. I hope to hell you find healing in them, too. Bless you, man. You're a better man than I could ever hope to be. Bless you.

Man, I don't know what to say to this. I lack the capacity to ever be a brutally honest as you are here. I hope it help you heal.

There are tears in my eyes as I type. I wish I could meet the 14-year-old, and listen to him for awhile, and give him a hug. I wish I could tell him it was going to be ok. Turns out, he became an amazing man . . . but he didn't know that at the time, did he?

Your format here expresses so much that for which you didn't/don't have words. And man . . . I honor your courage and your artistry with this piece.

This:

For now I rustle papers. And
my love is flawed. I wish to
love each, simply.

But then I wish we could
crush each other, slowly, with
our will alone, slowly, until we
have no purpose, just rout
each other out, grind each
other away, our love the last thing we feel.

When you've routed it all out of your mind, when you've ground it into the dust we all are - still, the love.

The video stunning, your words, heartbreaking. I hope in some way it helps you find peace by speaking of it and it's horribleness. How brave you are to start the journey.

I find myself crying as I read this, knowing so many fragile young people do the same.

I can say that for some, writing or being able to share the story helps relieve the pain, not eliminate it, but ease it some. I've counseled many teens, boys and girls...there is violence implied, or you would never give in. This I know first hand.

So sorry.
R

How terrible to suffer; how human to survive; how miraculous to prosper and move on to a state of open-heartedness and to live a well-intentioned life. You are miraculous.

Greg... my turn to cry with you... I need to find the words. This is/was devestating. Holding you in my heart... xo

It seems that surviving is its own miracle. r

thank you everyone who has come and been so kind. I am not prepared to respond yet.

Dearest Greg,

There are so few safe venues to talk about rape, and none for boys or men. I am so sorry that happened to you. Donna is right. Survival requires many skills.

There was not one moment of violence because you knew better of it. You knew better. You survived. I am so glad, we are all the better for it. All of us here and all the people you've touched in the 'real' world.

Your writing, Greg, your writing.... you are somewhere right now with it. Something is happening here on the screen with all we read , all you are giving us... I know how vulnerable and transcendent that can feel inside. I hope you feel very safe and loved right now in your life. This kind of writing demands, needs, requires loving feedback and comfort. I wish that for you, a loving hand to hold.

*sigh* take care, bub

Your writing this hideous thing, so powerfully, I feel honored to read. Peace to you Greg.

I have hidden secrets that I could never tell. Not like this. This takes something that I do not possess. The ability to write it down without breaking down!

I'm a little stunned here, Greg. I think it best if I leave it at that, except to say that I am thinking about you.

What everyone else has said so well. And also, we are here for you.

I know you've wanted to write this for some time. I hope it's better, now that it's done. And I hope the wish to kill goes away. Don't know how to make that happen. Maybe it'll just go.

I'm glad you found a place that felt safe to write this.

Searing and powerful post, Greg. Honored and heartened that you shared it. Thank you.

Well CRAP!!!!
Amazing writing,,,but the pain...!!!

I have absolutely no words for this incredibly searing post, Greg. I want to say something thoughtful, compassionate, something to help salve your soul a bit. But I haven't got a clue what to say.

I'll just say that you are one of the bravest, most honest men I know. You survived. You did what you had to do to survive. I am damn glad you're here.

I hope this has brought you some peace, Greg.

I read this. I felt that I wrote it, but I knew I did not. You show courage in showing what you know.

I am without words, Greg.

I am speechless. I am with you on this journey...xox

Greg, I always knew you were amazing. Much love and compassion to you.

My youngest son just turned 14 yesterday. I am so sorry this was your experience at that age. 14 is a fragile age. I cannot even imagine. The fact that you are able to write about this and express your feelings at such an emotional level, is hopeful and courageous. Big hug.

From such pain, artistry. But such pain.

"And when I get very close to what happened, I write poetry instead. And i do not speak plain truth."

Whatever it is you are speaking, it is what is working for you now and I feel every ounce of it. I was crying the whole way. I know this journey and I appreciate the bravery you have shown in sharing it and all its beautiful rawness here.

"I wait for you to open your eyes

bleeding eyes

I wait for your to find me
and rise up

It took me 30 years to say the truth out loud, to my wife."

Gut-wrenching Greg, truly flattening. I wish I could have a cup of tea with you and sit for a couple hours...and just be.

I admire your courage -- I certainly don't have it. I do know this -- none of us could last a day without rationalization -- and we all have our secrets --

Some leave us cold
Some rise unbidden
Some must be told
Some must be hidden
Fight, flight or stay?
Please or displeasing?
Who is to say?
We had our reasons

I couldn't breathe, my heart broke in two, and I just wanted to save that 14 year old boy as I read your words. But then I knew ~ you saved him by surviving. You're saving him now by writing about this, by telling about what happened to you. What has been hidden away in the dark crevices of your heart loses its power to haunt you when it is exposed to the light of day.

I lack the words to express the depth of admiration I have for you. Keep writing, keep healing, I will be here reading and supporting you.

~R~

Well, this is extraordinary -- you've invented whole new form of literature. where thoughts and emotions, poetry and prose, finesse and raw feeling, literally exist side by side. It reminds me of a random bouquet of other brilliant innovations ... Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude" where characters spo0ke through masks and then revealed the truth to the audience with the masks down; Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried", where different versions of the same story overlap and confront each other and crab-walk towards the truth of memory; and even Stephen Colbert's The Word, where the acerbic liberal commentary appears next to the blowhard "Stephen Colbert's" absurd rantings, delicately mocking him and presenting both sides of the issue. Your device is better and richer, though ... presenting the literary work and the tortured truth behind it in a plainsong harmonic intimacy more than twice as powerful as either voice alone.

Keep it up, man. It's five thirty in the morning and I haven't even had my coffee yet. I surely don't need it now.

Rated.

(Words and Music by Joan Baez)

In my heart I will wait
by the stony gate
and the little one
in my arms will sleep.
Every rising of the moon
makes the years grow late
and the love in our hearts will keep.
There are friends I will make
and bonds I will break
as the seasons roll by
and we build our own sky.
In my heart I will wait
by the stony gate
and the little one
in my arms will sleep.

And the stars in your sky
are the stars in mine
and both prisoners
of this life are we.
Through the same troubled waters
we carry our time,
you and the convicts and me.
There's a good thing to know
on the outside or in,
to answer not where
but just who I am.
Because the stars in your sky
are the stars in mine
and both prisoners
of this life are we.

And the hills that you know
will remain for you
and the little willow green
will stand firm.
The flowers that we planted
through the seasons past
will all bloom
on the day you return.
To a baby at play
all a mother can say,
he'll return on the wind
to our hearts, and till then
I will sit and I'll wait
by the stony gate
and the little one
'neath the trees will dance.

© 1969, 1970 Chandos Music (ASCAP)

brave and brilliant

Donna: Thank you. I don't exist in the hate anymore. I have filled my life with good.

femme: thank you for reading this.

next: thank you.

AtHome: thank you

ClarkK: Ordinary and flawed i am. Banal and irritating at times. just ask my wide and kids. in here I get to distill and cauterize. Thank you.

Cap;n: It sort of does. If I could do nothing but write I would do this, write it all, get it all done. and have something. Not healing, but a laying to rest. thank you.

Owl: thank you my friend. I wish o how I sometimes wish i could go back and whisper some things in that boy's ear, too. to reach in and lift his heart up a few millimeters.

consonant: The ending is more bitter than it seems. i realized the ambiguity after finishing: " love the last thing we feel" can mean of all things it is not love that makes me want this un-worded sensation of obliteration with the ones I want to love. I express here the teetering feeling I have at times, the restraint from harming my beloveds, just as I am in the midst of my deepest love for them. That is the essential trauma in me, from this. Thank you

lunch: thank you for these kind words.

Buffy: i cannot speak here on the details. I am glad someone who writes with such tenderness and powers of observation (your recent post about Skip W) has a role in counseling young people in trouble. thank you.

bellweather: a therapist said to me once I was incurably sane. My siblings were not so lucky. I credit a subtle biology. thank you.

C.K: I feel held. thank you.

Joan: how do we do it? how do we stay on the good side of the yellow line? we want, we need. to have it all be Good. Thank you.

wakingup: You touch me with these kind and care-ful words. I do not feel safe. I have come close to deleting this piece a half-dozen times since posting it. It is a bridge too far. I just want to live an ordinary life, to be unknown, to buy nails at True Value, to be barely known, as Deb's husband. And yet I write these, here on OS.

And I feel love and comfort from all here. thank you.

sweetfeet: thanks.

rita: thank you

scanner: i am incomplete. Writing stitches me up, for a while. thank you

Frank: thanks

Lea: dear one. thank you.

Beckster: I have been "in touch" with it ever since -- until i realize the next part, the next after that, the view I will not climb to. I go further, higher with this one. I want to rest, someday, and know the suffering that is endless for all of us as just ordinary, and no greater than the ordinary joy we all have. Thank you.

walkaway: millions of me's out there, with far worse to sort thru. Out penal system allows this. thank you

jimmy, my friend. Yeah. I confess the desire. It does not own or consume me. I write it here because it is true. thank you

mamoore: me too. Or is it? thank you.

David: thank you

J D: thank you

Bill S: You say a good thing, just the way you say it. thank you

Trilogy. I am not sure. but thanks

mypsyche: I am too old to be afraid any more. thank you

Karin: you honor me with this comparison. I wish it were in any way true. Joyce is far subtler, for more observant, than I. thank you

Verbal: thank you dear one

Robin: thanks, friend.

Coyote: thank you for that kindness

M B: There were times as i watched each of my three daughters turn 11 -- when I first was on my own, and then 12, 13, 14, that my heart broke, and i saw even more. Each time I relived, and saw anew, just how young I was. I am left grateful for them and their better life, jealous of them, and angry and grieving for what I lost. thank you

Stim: thank you

Sparking: perhaps we can someday. just tea, and misc talk. thank you

Tom: rationalization and secrets are the outcome of starting our odysseys, of separating ourselves from our parents, yes? thank you for understanding this post.

unbreakable. a very kind comment to me. Healing is not quite what is happening. But I must do this. I must get it all out. It will take years, i know. thank you.

Steven: I find this format, starting with Redaction a few weeks ago, a liberating and very difficult process, but it comes closer to giving me the full range of telling it than any other. Thank you.


sophie: thanks

Nikki: thank you.

Greg,

I envy that you have moved beyond hate. Since my daughter's kidnapping and rape, hate walks with me every step I take. I fight hard to keep it buried under all my other emotions, but the battle is wearying and the scars run deep. I take comfort from your words that time will, indeed, heal.

Donna: I am so sorry to hear this. I will go look at your posts.

I have not so much moved past hate as made it smaller, and inconstant. I conjure it here; otherwise the effects are small. But pervasive.

Lovingkindness and compassion are the best we can offer, experience, and practice. Kurt Vonnegut said in "Mother Night", about a US spy who was forced to pretend to be a Nazi radio personality during that war, that "we are who we pretend to be".

If we pretend to feel lovingkindness, it takes root. If we practice lovingkindness, it becomes who we are. Suffering is universal. Compassion for others is compassion for ourselves. It isn't supernatural. It simply fits the facts of our existence, and has the practical benefit that we ourselves are not consumed by the meanest, smallest, sharpest pain in us.

Peace and humor and love to you and all you care for, dear Donna.

Knowing all too well the emotions of hating until I'm wanting to kill, planning every detail of my revenge. Keeping it close, like a beloved teddy bear, that even in the dark, slyly smiles at me.

Your poetry is soul searing. As always, I'm overwhelmed by it's power, beauty, honesty!!!

RATED

One word came into my head as I read this: stunning. Your format of this post, the word choice, the subtle descriptions, the passion, the pain...It is all so real and beautiful and terrible and heartbreaking.

My heart and soul go out to you, go out to the children we were, the children that are experiencing this pain now. My heart and soul go out into the world because there must be enough love and hope and trust to transforn this pain.

Thank you.

junk1: I know this too, the revenge you speak of. I used to imagine flying, invisible, taking vengeance, a wraith, a horror. It comforted me. I could put myself to sleep with it.

Years ago, the bloodiness ended, but I still found myself dropping them into the ocean, or onto some rock in the north Atlantic, where they could eke out existence, alone; a peculiarly sadistic alternative to mayhem.

Now late at night I sometimes imagine I can fly, and once in while I go to the Congo and lift all the guns away, or take those child soldiers up, free them. But I can never quite work out where they should go. How to really save them or anyone. But I hear singing as i fly and I imagine the relief in those young boys, caught in my gentle net, spirited away to somewhere that must, must, be better.

Gwen: If we if we think thru how much suffering there is, it stops the heart. We must settle for all the kindness and forbearance we can muster for each other. Not passivity: our voices must be ever-ready, and strong. Not compliance: we must speak boldly.

Say our piece. But retreat gracefully. Make no war.

You are a gifted writer, Greg. I think the dual narratives and genres work exceptionally well together, revealing and reveling in the truth of your experience. The poem in itself is incredibly powerful and I hope that writing it has brought you peace.

Papa, this is a beautifully written piece. It is hard for me to comment on the substance, as it would be for you if I wrote a similar piece, I love you.

Sao: Thank you for the close read and this kind comment

Molly: sweet daughter of mine: yeah. I understand. It is in part because any of you three might read this that I am sparing in the details. In part.

And I know.

Yours is a gracious comment. I love you.

Greg, what can I say to you. Almost every woman I know has been raped or molested. Many of the men I know have too. I wonder if the ones I see as having escaped it, are still hiding it, still in that prison.

There's a wonderful woman I know, whose father made her go to a home for wayward girls. She was molested by stronger girls her entire time there. She still has many racist feelings because the girls were a different race. She has congenital heart problems. Her father was an addict til homelessness til death. Her mother denies her. She is a beautiful person who deserves so much more than the luck she's had.

What you said about the young boys, is something every woman deals with, and I am naiive, I can't discount all men too. We know we can manipulate sexually. It is a hard rope to walk, espescially for the abused.

In the way you live your life, you have broken the cycle. How important is that? Your kids are stellar!

It can get worse (remembering the abuse) in times of depression. Your words heal so much. Thank you. Stay safe.

Sometimes a truth cannot be said in its enormity and still be "plain." This is extraordinary, Greg.

Cocoa: my kids are happy, intrinsically. They have never known a heavy hand. (it doesn't mean they don't complain or never suffer from insufferable teen malaise, but, hey, waddyagonna do?)

Thank you


voicegal: I am finding my Voice with this. it suits me, to make it into multiple voices, columns, boxes. Some things are better said when we check ourselves, pull things out, comment on our own truths. Thank you

This had to be so hard to "post." We all beat ourselves up so much with shame & fear & anger. The ghosts linger, they are always there. To write of it means to confront the violence & hatred & try to mold them into a form that makes sense, a form that invites understanding & with understanding, forgiveness, a sense of all of us being in this life together. Seeing those prisoners in the video, knowing that they have probably all done terrible things -- we have all done terrible things -- but here come these people with a gift, saying, Have a song, have a blessing.

Beautiful writing, it feels strange to just read it & move on. This one will stay with me.

I have my own parallel experiences and emotions Greg, so I know how challenging such a hidden truth can be.

The choices you made for yourself and for your family are the ones that matter most, and as those beautiful choices made in the face of such horrible events and emotions cannot change what happened, at some point our choice of who to be does diminish the significance of those events and you become the sacred love that you have so clearly chosen to be your primary expression.

Greg Correll is now become the sacred love he has chosen to express throughout his life as an adult.

suzie: I still consider taking it down. I am fretting over this much exposure. I feel the perverse need to confess my participation, the exact way I "played along"; at the same time i feel the urge to write about the physical pain of it (as if that would get rid of the memory once and for all; it wouldn't) ; at the same time i want to write about the grief, and how impossible it is to talk about that grief with the people I love the most; at the same time i feel the urge to write about what was forever stolen from me, at an age when I couldn't begin to understand how important and enormous and beautiful it was, how jealous i am in some bitter kernel of me of all the people, even my own children, who have never lost their innocence and self-ownership; and finally I feel the urge to write a monumental I accuse at the facility, those boys, a system that would have put a 14 year old runaway in with serious criminal delinquents, in such crowded conditions.

And I find that final video so incredibly moving. I feel forgiveness suffuse me every time I watch it. I see those faces, those prisoners, and see even my attackers, goddamn goddamn, and forgive them, approximately, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.

thank you


Dr Su: what a lovely idea. I have and I am. but it is fleeting. Nothing cleanses perfectly, no forgiveness is lasting. We must nurture it and on some days let it float, nearby. good enough, i guess.

But I love what you say.

Thank you

Thank you for offering up your truth. Let us all be so thankful for poetry; a language unto itself that allow us to express truths to ourselves and to others.

The more people speak up, the easier it is for everyone. I know the feeling of entrusting your story to someone and not being believed. It comes as another betrayal. By sharing your story you help integrate that hurt person inside you and become more whole.

Thanks for the videos too. Peace.

Greg Correll. Thanks for such brave sharing. I have been deeply ...
moved ...
almost, speechless.
I've rarely been so a-`
made painfully aware`
respectfully, my deepest respect. I pray
I turned the gadget off to grieve deeeply.
I've never suffered sexual violation - mine was war.
It is beyond language. Seriously. Courage. Thanks.

Joan Baez is wonderful. Post `Nam, I took a course in the Politics of Nonviolence with former Wa/Po syndicated columnist, Mr.`Coleman Mc'Carthy. He knew Joan Baez and etc.,
I love her music and believe in transcendence. Oh, ay.
My trauma's war. Somehow, I hear You, respectfully.
You have helped. I am sure, and bless You, m`fer, ah.
That was a respectful expression in combat. You Life.

Scarlett: I was uneasy with poetry for decades. My tastes in it pedestrian.

Until I found my writing voice, and then I found it the natural form for much of what I want to say. It's odd.

And I truly believe the salvation of human beings is not in genuflection or attitude of prayer or in prayer at all, but in our willingness to just be, as we are, to say to all that follow see? THIS is how we are.

I suppose concern about belief is in their somewhere but it is the smallest thing for me. My panic is: I am tainted. I failed to stop them, I failed to fight back. I am not a man. It is completely irrational, and I don't want reassurances about it. I am a reporter here; it is what I feel, and is forever inescapable. It diminished over time, and re-emerges with the decision to tell. I am an archaeologist of my own life, I guess.

Thank you for the careful read and such a thoughtful comment.

LuluandPhoebe: Yes and yes. I am starting to understand that perhaps not recounting graphic history is OK. Perhaps better, to say it this way. thank you

Art: You honor me with the directness and passion and intimacy of your comment. For some reason Art your comment affects me deeply. I missed the draft by subterfuge. It added some more rocks to the pile of shame I carried since 14. Absurd, eh? There was honor in serving and honor in resisting, I know that in my head. But my heart is different. I know you get this.

I move towards you. kindred: sometimes formalities and syntax must be damned, sometimes words must spill everywhere, to be any good at all.

You Life, Art.

oh how did i miss this? and now my hands tremble almost too roughly to speak for me ... just to say how I'd like to wrap you in safety and protect you - you a grown man - my motherly instincts are to strong sometimes ... but oh to wrap you in safety and love and rock your lovely lovely spirit until you sleep.

1_Irritated_Mother:

hello, good and dear friend. Thank you for this kind and loving comment.

Brutal. Powerful. Unflinching. It speaks volumes for the measure of you as a person, of your heart, of your encompassing strength, that you not only dare to return to this place of pain but you dare to expose it, naked and unresolved. I love you.