Tammy Smith Writes
Publications
But what does that matter to a perimenopausal single mother having a hot flash, battered by the blush of her blues? She tries not to sweat shivering through her shirt. Worries about her weight, struggling to manage the synergy of dark energy punctuating the flow of less heavy periods. Single moms can’t afford to spend such spotty days complaining. Their kids need them to be supermoons, wearing silvery capes. Blind to bravery’s vision, few realise the fullness of grit or fathom how a black hole is just another name for a heavenly body collapsing under the pull of its own gravity. As real as any other kind of star, but harder to explain. A double dose of pointy sharp shadows slanting perspectives, skewing our view. I know it seems bizarre to categorise parenting without a partner as anything but the collapse of space and time, but relatively speaking, a single mom is a competitive force of nature. A turbulent tempest twisting humanity’s head in divergent directions, wasting resources. An erratic seismic shift in the ways we stretch metaphors, using the science of climate change to bend language like straws.
Irregular periods-
become fickle symptoms
of cyclical problems
I do not know which one to prefer,
the echo of wisdom,
or the echo of ignorance.
The professor postulating,
or just after.
Words like wishes fill noisy lecture halls,
reverberate off wooden chairs,
reflect an outline of the professor
leaning into silhouettes,
or a flock of students.
O thin brains of academia,
I pity your vision.
Do you not see how the system
stomps on your slippery feet
and those around you?
Corner offices look bare under glaring lights.
The culture is shifting,
or just after,
the professors should be retiring.
When I say I can’t remember,
it means I won’t tell you why I did it
Not in the middle of a crowded emergency room.
Not while you’re hugging a clipboard.
I refuse to fill out any of your forms.
Stop staring at my scars.
I haven’t given you consent to trespass on memories.
When I say I can't remember,
it means I don’t trust you.
Not in the middle of a crowded bar.
Not while you’re holding an empty glass.
I won’t fill your needs.
Stop staring at my full bosom.
I haven’t given you consent to suck from my bottle.
Why not isn’t the answer you're looking for,
but it’s fun to curl my lips around the tight t
at the end of the sentence and sneer.
Maybe we just want different shots.
You can’t sip from my cup and refuse to tip the bartender.
Never assume soft drinks are free.
When I say I can’t remember,
it means I feel uncomfortable sharing my story with you.
Admissions become part of discharges.
Seeking consent to release information is sacred work.
Did that even happen is the worst way you ask why.
I haven't seen you in-person for the past four months. It's been approximately 121 days since I counted the steps like sacred breaths it took to walk from my car to the lobby to your office. Almost 3,000 hours from the last time I wrote you a check sitting in the waiting room. It's crazy to think nearly 10,520,000 seconds have passed since I felt the wrinkled weight of the fee I pay you tucked deep inside my pocket.
Now I send you money using Venmo, PayPal, or some similar kind of sinister direct deposit we mutually agree. It may be the same currency coming out of the same checking account, but it feels second-rate.
I miss sitting on the lumpy couch in your office; the one I used to joke was older than my earliest memory. Deeper-rooted. I grieve for my favorite spot, the middle cushion sagging from years of butts pressing into the fabric's folds. When I made fun of you for not replacing the furniture, you laughed and wanted to explore my budding interest in office décor. Probed me as to why I think colors shrink in proportion to their size and shape. I remember thinking how clever you were in asking me to lean into the diverse ways that positionality matters.
I still recall driving home from that last session we had back in early March, feeling grateful for the safe space you gave me to punch pillows. Flip out. If I had known the world was on the verge of shutting down, I would have asked you for a few extra minutes to process this devastating loss.
Now we have virtual therapy sessions. Expend additional energy and resources using a weird combination of phones, apps, and telemedicine platforms, trying to maintain our attachment. I've already lost count of the times I've had to restart my router to improve my connection. Speaking to you through a cracked screen makes me cry, then freeze. Technical glitches abound. Everything looks and feels creepy. Your hazy, triangulated face melts into the background like a Dali painting. We misconstrue sighs for yawns: another hiccup. You can't keep track of my eyeball rolls and garrulous grunts. Skip over a pause, and needs slip, like loose change falling between the cushions, unseen.
Dear therapist, sitting at home with buds sticking out of your ears and your volume muted. You gaze at me like a mad serpent. In this new twisted reality, your balding head swiveling around my despair makes me recoil. I contemplate quitting therapy. Never mind that I'm privileged to have insurance coverage; in this innovative unraveling, I'm ashamed to shed my skin. Or maybe I'm just punishing you for bearing the pressure of these disclosures.
I can't wait to see you back in the office. I miss using your couch—punching pillows. I started having dreams about the plastic clock on your wall, a masked face covered with scratches waving a gloved second hand in my direction. Moving past my secrets. Keeping track of my progress. Have I gone mad? Insanity may not be contagious, but it's still virulent. And stigmatizing. Another virus we fail to treat.
There is more time to think now. The wider sky seems less forgiving. It’s time to write. The sound of my fingers tapping a keyboard is comforting. Point and reach. Pull back. I curl my thumb around the space bar for leverage. This is not the time to hunt and peck. I pick letters lovingly. Click-clack. The sound of creating prose is not unlike the sound of a steady rain beating down on the pavement. I am well-versed in the language of pain. And no matter what anyone says, raw feelings are often invigorating.
Breathless from missing you, I run smack into the middle of an August sunrise. My aching feet pound the hot pavement. Sprint past painful memories. What’s done is done you quip when I beg for a second chance to make things better. Your sigh further stretches the distance between us.
I sit waiting on a hard red chair as old as my pain,
watch the minute hand on the clock
make its round past plastic faces
keeping train of hours I waste
staring at shadows form on green hospital walls like
foundation cracks undermining my structural integrity.
Here is a breakdown of my acute admissions:
Check-in longer than a child’s list to Santa
leave a spiraling paper trail of
revolving door rhetoric
masquerading as progress notes.
My diagnosis rolls of the tongues of
mental health professionals
paying lip service to providing support,
until i become a cluster of clinical symptoms rolled up into a
long sentence and committed to a charted system.
I curl up in a tight ball on the edge of my hospital bed and cry.
When a nurse calls me borderline and
Rolls her eyeballs heavenward,
I want to die all over again.
The transference happens during group therapy
as we trade secrets passive aggressively,
hand each other tissues and compare scars.
I shift abruptly,
my chair scraping so discordantly against the floor,
I lose my grounding.
Bored to pieces, I envision a life on the outside where
hours are not marked by med lines and snack breaks and
artificial light unmasking transparent reminders to
move me past the point of staying sick and tired.
I decide I want to get better.
If I embrace wellness and I accept recovery,
I can return to this center and help others.
I sleep on the chance I still have dreams worth chasing.
At day break
I take measured steps to the breakfast table where
I chew thoughtfully on all my possibilities and spit out the left overs.
I break bread with my demons and resolve to forgive myself.
Swallowing my pride,
I ask Staff for second helpings.
1. Curl up in the middle of an old lumpy sofa sagging beneath the weight of your unmet needs and read Carrie Fisher’s memoir, Shockaholic. Prepare to be shocked! Forget everything you know, at least temporarily, and chalk this up to a side effect of some short-term treatment you needed curing from. If that doesn’t work, power up your Amazon Kindle and download Fisher’s other treasure, Wishful Drinking. As you guzzle down a corona chuckle at the irony of feeling desperately empty. This is the stuff psychological dreams are made of. We fantasize about changing our lives as if we can knead the clay of damp potential into something more substantial.
2. Compare yourself to others. Dig deep enough to get lost in the details. This is especially easy during a crisis where vulnerabilities rage wild, and character depths sink to abysmally low levels. Waste plenty of time surfing Facebook and Instagram to snoop on friends, co-workers, and that bratty girl turned woman you went to grade school with. You hated her back then, the shadowy pretentiousness of her arched back and her willowy frame bending over backward like a weeping willow to suck up all the light and sun and energy from the classroom. Seeing her on the screen now still makes you droop.
3. Berate yourself for forgetting the name of that friend of a friend whose co-worker makes your skin crawl. During this pandemic, you need to know his name! If you forge a connection, maybe you won't be shortsighted about being short-circuited, which is inexcusable during an unprecedented global crisis. Take it one step further and ask yourself how long it will take to forget everything you used to know. This is not a time to relish in foolish antics others call games. You are too wise to be caught up in all those fake smiles you deposited in my memory bank for safekeeping. How dare you laugh at me while curling up with a book? Your long bony nose curves to one side like a witch brewing her stew, and you have the nerve to cackle at my dreams?
4. Scream to murder the silence. Howl like a deranged wolf. Wait for the sun to set and the moon to rise. Can’t find the moon? It hardly matters. Just huddle in the corner and watch the dense fog outside the window thicken. Watch the storm or wait for it to pass. It’s just a phase; after all, we become full, and then we shrink into halves and quarters, splitting off parts of ourselves until darkness morphs the sharp edges and obscures them from view. After the elements shift, there’s a slant like an opening, and the real landscape rolls into view.
5. Pay homage to the silence. And if you can’t stop screaming, forgive yourself. You’re in the middle of something you’ve never seen before; why not milk that sentiment for all it’s worth because when this too passes you will miss the chaos and the liberty of acting carelessly. Perhaps all this quiet emerged as a helpful transition. Not all change has to feel like an eruption. A virus festering or fog thickening grows denser than any blurred sense of self. Shadows can’t shield you from the hot blazing sun.
6. Write some wickedly smart prose while your ten-year-old kid watches America’s Got Talent or some other reality TV show spin-off where they parade talent like it’s a new can of whipped cream to spray over cakes and coffee and cookie crap like scraps. Study Ventriloquism like an actual dummy! There’s an art to perfecting lip-reading. Watch out for scams and clumsy trapeze artists. Where’s the thrill in being well versed in the practicalities of life? Gambling is usually dangerous. The jar of potential I ache to fill is as cracked as my parched lips.
7. Start reminiscing about the past. Lament how kids today won't ever know what it feels like to watch Saturday morning cartoons yet feel grateful your own kid has more than one option. It's a blessing, after all, that your child doesn't have to grow up afraid of his father. Just because it’s statistically more likely, history doesn’t have to repeat itself. And if you start feeling sorry for yourself during this pandemic, think of Anne Frank hiding out in that infamous attic, writing to survive.
The elevator in the hospital’s main lobby, the one caddy-corner the one I use to transport patients up to radiology is out of service for the third time this week. Of course I don’t know this when I leave the emergency room pushing an obese middle-aged man in a wheelchair, so by the time I get there and see the hastily scrawled note Do Not Use scotch-taped across the elevator door, I’m winded and annoyed.
“It’s as broken as I feel,” I mutter.
“At least you ain’t fat,” the man snorts.
When did my lowly job become a pissing contest?
After someone dies by overdose, the world withdraws.
Divided, we square our roots.
Forget about borrowing - disregard those place values
we should carry over
as odd remainders we subtract like stark reminders
to quit writing dangerous scripts.
I cannot see my client Molly* over the phone, but I know she’s crying. I can hear the slow gasps and know she’s sucking in her breath, trying to hold back the wails we both know are only seconds away. I’ve been here with Molly before when she was in the midst of a horrific divorce and custody battle and overwhelmed with emotions, but it was face to face, in the therapy office, not over the phone. I try my best to visualize her there in her home, a noisy and cramped two-bedroom apartment from what she told me during previous sessions and wonder if she’s sitting on the couch, perhaps in an effort to replicate the therapeutic experience. Or maybe she’s perched on the edge of her stepstool - the one she told me she found an antique store the week after she signed the lease for the apartment – gazing out of the kitchen window.
My hands clutching my iPhone are moist with sweat, and I take notice of my own breathing. I hadn’t realized I was that angry until now and make a point of discussing this with my supervisor. I’m also exhausted. It’s as if my body is processing all the emotions I’m feeling. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I’m annoyed- at the virus, at the systemic injustices, which have always been an insidious threat against the marginalized population groups I’ve chosen to work with, at myself, even, for not being the perfect therapist during such a trying time.
I’m frustrated with Molly. Therapists refer to their emotional reactions regarding their clients as countertransference. Mental health professionals engage in ongoing supervision to discuss the ways their thoughts and feelings about the people they are trying to help can impact the therapeutic process. I generally meet with my supervisor weekly, but we have been speaking over the phone more frequently during the past couple of weeks to ensure we are providing optimal services to meet the diverse needs of those we serve.
In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic and social distancing protocols, psychotherapists have turned to technology or telehealth as it is called, to continue providing emotional support. When I stopped seeing clients in the office, I offered them the option of using Zoom or similar HIPPA-compliant platform where we would be able to “meet” over the computer screen or talking over the phone. Molly chose to have our therapy sessions over the phone. Perhaps once we have moved beyond the immediate crisis of our collective trauma in coping with this pandemic, it will be useful for us to explore the reasons why she preferred the phone over Zoom. Maybe she feels safer shedding tears I physically can’t see? Perhaps seeing my physical home office and allowing me a glimpse into her natural habitat feels too threatening? Clients share information with their therapists in diverse ways. Verbally, through body language, by the choices they make, such as canceling an appointment at the last minute, or the way they sit on a chair and uncross their legs. The nuances of each and every interaction between client and therapist are vibrant, and the skilled practitioner is continuously observing. Learning when to speak and when to stay silent takes years of practice.
We are in the midst of harrowing and traumatic times. The fear of the unknown, a seemingly endless procession of what if’s and when will this end, revolving door rhetoric of sorts, plagues many more of us than the COVID-19 virus itself. The emotional fevers we are likely to spike during this coronavirus pandemic need empathic care. Folks who can’t breathe because their chest is tight need a psychiatric ventilator. Exhaustion may very well be the new norm we wear like those makeshift scarves we tie and turn into masks, but that doesn’t make it feel comfortable.
Psychotherapists have advanced training in crisis intervention and human development. We are adept at adapting to stressful situations and strive to build and maintain safe places for those we counsel. And not entirely unlike the makeshift tent hospitals sprouting up across the country to accommodate the overflow of sick patients, therapists are building space virtually. We are using technology now to foster deeper connections. Historically, therapists trained to meet people where they are. Thanks to technology, we can connect therapeutically with more ease and flexibility. Not unlike the emergency room physicians, intensive care nurses, and other first responders saving lives on the medical frontlines, therapists are busy fighting another side to this virulent pandemic. We are also making unprecedented sacrifices to ensure we meet the psychological needs of individuals during this time of uncertainty, pain, and loss.
*not her real name.
Read my lips. Slightly parted,
split by a scream, tucked
behind the hard edge of silence.
Trace the felt-lined tip of tongue-tied rage.
Share my shame, sticking to the bottom of a script
I’m rewriting
humanity’s fall from grace
using cliff notes.
Watch me (live or remote)
sing and dance and play games like Scrabble or chess
with cymbal-banging monkeys
in the middle of a drum circle,
waving a scarf like a wand or a flag,
surrendering to the chaos,
shaking my Magic 8-Ball, seeking answers to hazy,
try again later, but don’t get lazy types of questions
I should keep to myself.
Watch me draw portraits of stick figures
in glass houses with white picket fences
past their vanishing points,
blurring the background
outside the margin of error.
I should recycle more
resources instead of wasting my talents
trying to tell time from a melting clock.
Watch me run
from the pressure to win
means to stop waging wars
against mirrors on pink princess walls.
Stepping off the unfairest scale in the land
shouldn’t feel this heavy.
Watch me ask my therapist
why I chase perfection
like it’s an algorithm
I need to feel safe
because I can’t stretch my arms far enough
across a yoga mat to rest in a child’s pose.
At least not yet, but even I know relaxing takes practice.
Thanks to social distancing, my co-worker Connor and I are finally alone. Only two employees at a time are permitted in the break room to clean out their lockers.
“Did you know Amazon Prime ships steel caskets in two days?” Connor looks at me, and my gut drops.
“What?”
“According to CNN, death rates are rising. We need to plan.”
Even when he says crazy things, he’s irresistibly cute.
“Look, it’s okay,” I say, “At least we weren’t fired.”
“I guess,” Connor sighs, “But how long will we work from home?”
I shrug. “So kiss me now before you can’t.”
Should I lie still,
pretending that ordinary is good enough?
Or should I present you with the perfect prose,
trying to prove that perfect is the new pretty?
Should I pose naked,
modeling this jargon?
Should I throw language in your face
like a rude slap
or a stick of gum I'm tired of chewing?
Should I keep lying about the color of my hair,
denying that a box of dye can’t transform
a thick tangle of roots?
I wish the world would quit
playing childish games like
“Mother May I”
and take a giant step forward,
admitting that all rules
are rigged.
i.
There’s a startling symmetry between striped objects that match without meeting, a sacred geometry shaping their connection to place and time. Intimacy implies knowing the essence of something without having to touch its center. Boundary violations cause accidents.
ii.
The only way to understand the depth of a random encounter is to experience its proximity to danger. It’s a marked lesson about the complexity of negotiating personal space in a traffic jam, where every move matters.
iii.
You can sense a couple’s closeness by listening to them describe their first date. When they tripped over a curb chasing a ball down their tree-lined street. Their first public fight. How far they’ll stretch the truth about how close they’ve come to eclipsing the dark edge of blue shadows. If they believe in fate.
iv.
Have you witnessed that miraculous moment when maturity embodies vulnerability? Flashing lights pale in comparison to seeing an old married couple navigate a busy intersection. Watch them hold hands, stopping to look both ways before crossing. Listen to them joke about worrying they’ll trip over the same orange cones meant to keep them safe. Hear them whisper, isn’t it a shame no one will stop for us?
Over the Mojave Desert —a sleek
white object breaking
the speed of sound —BOOM!
seems less grounding
in the middle of other exhilarating events
when I need less to suggest more
doesn’t have to mean faster
measures represent progress.
If only the high-pitched hum
reverberating tens of thousands of feet
above a crowd of captivating onlookers
seared their sense of sovereignty.
The return of supersonic travel
reminds me to pause. Focus
on the fullness of my breath.
Dig my heels deep
into the center
of my purple yoga mat.
Gently lower my body down
to rest in a child's pose.
This is for all the social workers:
from the seasoned old-timers ready to retire,
to the grad student slash intern with
their stash of process recordings,
to the LSW, about to crash under pressure
of accumulating 3,000 plus clinical hours
this is for you.
And to everyone else in between,
all of us mid-careerish feeling squeamish
by the frenzy of recent events, I see you.
I really do.
Because I won’t shut my eyes in response
to this demise. I can’t compromise the size
of my heart; it won’t recognize this amount of pain.
And who can blame it? A social worker’s heart beats
for a higher purpose. From the start, we search
for meaning beyond the surface. Our code of ethics
ensures we will endure nothing less.
It’s a stressful time to be a warrior.
But like a good soldier, we need courage,
collaboration and conviction.
Consider this as our global treatment plan.
How many ways have we learned to
chart our challenges as successes?
Social work is not for the weak or faint of heart.
Because this field won’t let us yield to tyranny.
It demands we level up. Develop
a more detailed game plan
so we don’t get derailed from our mission.
This year our professional theme,
Compassion plus action doesn’t come cheap.
But it’s a fraction of the astronomical cost of silence.
Or apathy. And even as many of us will joke
we’re not good at math, we can still count
all the times we’ve put someone else’s needs first,
sometimes to our detriment,
the best measurement of our commitment.
This isn’t the time to sit on the sidelines,
I mean, can you really bench a social worker?
So lift your heart the length of your arms,
let your hips swing with the fullness of this cause,
and let passion linger on your lips like a deep pause.
Let action plus compassion unfold
like a prayer is a poem inside a promise
we preach from a place of empowerment and praise.
Action plus compassion multiplied by advocacy
strengthens us; it’s our common denominator,
the language we’re most fluent in, that mother tongue
that makes us lash out at oppressors who try to divide us,
diminish our vision and deny us access to our calling.
Because we’re social workers, we already understand
compassion as the chemistry of caring.
Attachment theory demonstrates that we all need
one nurturing individual to believe we are worthy.
This becomes the frame we hold for our clients.
For each other. For ourselves. And for the world.
How many social workers will it take to change the light bulb?
Dumb joke or a dark truth? Now, more than ever,
we need a strong vision and the clarity of wisdom.
Like the poet Emily Dickinson said, hope is the thing
with feathers that perches in the soul.
We, the social workers, are out with lanterns, looking for ourselves.
Truth seekers radiating light.
Life is a Gem
Life is a Gem
Is that a marble in your back pocket, or is it a small stone? It's tough to tell the difference between objects that are roughly the same size when the world decides if the value of a physical property reflects what it's worth. Wait and watch as judgment rises and falls like a heavy sigh. Every pocket is stuffed with things to keep, carry, or fling into the wind or water—harsher and deeper than a heavy sigh. The world won't wait in gentle silence for you to choose between something shiny or something sharp. But marble is a type of stone. We can't pretend it isn't buried in the sand at the edge of a dune or in the corner of an unmarked spot overgrown with grass.
every stone
isn’t a toy
marble to toss
Genuine Gemstones
You don’t get better at guessing
how many jellybeans
fit inside a jar.
Growing older
has nothing to do with
winning any prize.
It means maintaining
a childlike wonder
when observing the world
and the natural order of things,
like windswept skies tossing
hair over bone or a bare knee
brushing against resources
and bruising. What nature
rushes us to fix, like memory,
declines as we age.
We forget how to measure
the sentimental difference
between distance and time.
There’s no ruler or calculator clever
enough to convince me the world
is real.
You aren’t a stone’s throw away
from this gingerbread house
stuffed with sweet things to
chew or suck on like candy.
I never moved away from
believing in fairytales
or what lies within
the belly of a witch.
Koinophobia
Koinophobia refers to the fear of living an ordinary life.
After May Swenson’s “Question,” an imitation
Madness my mirror
my fixation my means
what will I see
when you are cracked
Where will I stare
How will I gawk
What will I follow
Where can I go
without my figure
all flawed and damaged
How will I know
in images ahead
is sickness or health
when Madness my stark
shiny reflection is split
How will it be
to sit in the dark
without candles or clock
and shadow for a hand
With puppet for play
how will I live?
My Rejection Slips
Sonnets I wish I could write.
All the weight I’ve lost and regained.
Mothers and fathers and brothers.
I wish we’d never been born.
All the Shakespeare I pretended to read in high school.
A heavy push—
Stop!
Gathering piles of dirty laundry.
I need to run away.
The sharp click of high heels.
Sweaty skin.
The smell of vigorous exercise.
Ignore every reason to quit.
Your last slap.
Leave me alone.
Go away—please come back soon.
Strips of paper I toss under the bed.
Marked Safe From
Making shadow puppets.
Chasing dreams.
Blaming brick and mortar stores for going bankrupt.
Shopping online.
Boycotting bookstores.
Rooting for the enemy.
Googling fake news.
Power Outages.
Winter melting into spring.