Anti-Heroin Chic
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

​

1/30/2021

Poetry by Dorothy Riehm

Picture
                William Clifford CC



A Person of Value

She thought herself of no value, no value at all.
Her father used her, abused her, her brothers too.
She was trash, they said, to be thrown away,
and this went on and on as she grew.
Her mother ignored her, said nothing at all
to stop her from thinking this true.
But there must have been something within
that she just could not dismiss
a sense of herself as other than this,
because she walked in our office one day
and with her eyes averted, her head down
she began to talk, but with barely a sound,
with a shame too deep to be spoken out loud
yet slowly she spoke and she spoke out loud
a litany of wrongs that seemed without end
from the gang of adolescent boys
to the continuing rapes by strangers and kin
acts she despised herself for
blaming herself not them.
The well-meaning counselor tried to relieve her 
She spoke of her value, her goodness, her innocent heart
and the girl tried hard to believe her
but she left the agency after only a start
and no one heard of her after.
Until a few years later the local paper
published the news of yet another disaster,
another opioid overdose,
a young woman found dead and alone in her room.
But she was not an addict.
She used her brother’s drugs.
Why did she do it?
Because, because, because

There are many more people I know
who do not value themselves
with far less cause than this,
and have never discovered
their one and only loveliness.
They need to be taught.
We need to teach each other
our own inestimable value,
and coax the wary soul
out into the open air
with a gentle and a tender care
over and over.
For is it not true
that to give a thing its value
only love will do?

​


Dorothy Riehm is a retired therapist and social worker who lives at Rocky Hill Cohousing in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has always loved reading and writing poetry and for the last few years has been pursuing her own writing more seriously, with the hope that she has something to contribute both from her experience as a social worker as well as from her many other experiences in a long and well-traveled lifetime. She is also enjoying the teaching of poetry this year to a small home school class, in addition to learning much herself from writing with others in a weekly writing group. 
​
claudia
2/7/2021 07:08:51 am

a heart-wrenching poem, another vivid picture of the world from Dorothy whose observations mean a lot to me

Stephanie Shafran link
2/28/2021 01:34:45 pm

Dorothy,
What a poignant, heart-wrenching poem...so respectful to so many like this young woman. Bravo!!!


Comments are closed.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    December 2024
    November 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.