Carole Smith Turner

Poetry and Art By Carole Turner So it's not my novel, my life story, or the short story I recently completed but it is a collection of my poems and artwork and I'm proud of this little book. Check it out and buy it for yourself or someone else or a bunch of someone elses. Thanks. 

Dean and I were finally able to get our first shot of the Covid Vaccine yesterday. My arm still hurts, I had to put ice on it last night and I felt kinda shitty but I'm OK with those side effects if it means soon I won't worry ALL THE DAMN TIME that I could get COVID. I won't always have in the back of my mind that a cough or scratchy throat in our household could be COVID. I'll be able to go dancing and sing karaoke without fear, travel more and not worry that someone I know and love will get it and die!  I am so sick and tired of COVID! I'd say the overwhelming majority of people I know have had COVID. I know six people who've died from it. I'm so thankful for doctors, nurses and scientists who've been fighting the virus for a year now. And yet the assholes...always there be assholes. Dean posted a picture of himself getting the shot on his Facebook and of course, a couple people felt they just had to comment in a negative, disapproving way.  Attention

2020 has been a year of reckoning for me. Reckoning with myself. So much time to contemplate.  Now I know that no one gets to tell me how to feel about my childhood. No one gets to tell me when to feel what I feel or how to process my trauma. AND they don't get to tell me not to feel.  For the first time I allowed myself to FEEL the anger. I let the anger toward my grandfather out of the heart shaped box . I acknowledged it. I embraced it. I saw that it was good, not bad. It was appropriate anger. I saw the egg shells he made our tiny feet walk on. I saw the emotional manipulation he used to destroy my fragile grandmother and used to torment my mother. I saw the reason I don't sleep at night. I looked at all of it, examined it. I asked "What the fuck?!" and I saw just how much his presence and influence caused me to act in the same way toward my own family. I swallowed hard pills this year. And I started down the path of healing.  I'm still on that path.  People

How it started.. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Carole Turner (@caroleturner) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Carole Turner (@caroleturner)   How it's going... How it went...

Every Thanksgiving we take our Christmas pics. This year I wanted to take them in the Geek Parlor so the kids decided we'd just raid our closets and wear whatever the F we wanted. I mean, 2020 has been so INSANE so why not?  I love how they turned out.  Merry Christmas and good riddance 2020!!

There she was A heart shaped box I’d gone on a stroll  Over hills of grey  Like firm pillows And I found her   Ouch!  I cut my foot I see a spot of blood On my skin  it pooled I see the  sharp corner  Reflecting like a mirror Peeking from firm pillows   I see myself  In the sharp thing That rose from the grey Taller than me It became The heart shaped box  With a heart shaped door With a black heart shaped knob  Which I opened  And walked inside Red velvet walls So soft  The door shut behind We paused  The heart shaped box and me Sizing each other up I felt comfortable Free I was welcome  To stay or leave Put events away Safely here Inside the heart shaped box   I sat on red velvet sofas That lined the walls Like I Dream of Jeanie's bottle They said rest child I remembered my cut The blood was the sofas The blood was red velvet walls That called to me Unload memories Here they will keep Here they will wait The memories conspired  And hired fighters A time would come  For them to sho