Tammy's Breakup Ode to Melissa: I Was 'Sideswiped and Left Mangled'

Wonderwall, Monday, May 24, 2010, 11:51am (PDT)

By Kat Giantis

Remember when Melissa Etheridge told Oprah that her recent breakup with Tammy Lynn Michaels after nine years and two kids together was "as mutual as those things can be"? Looks like it wasn't as much of a joint decision as she let on.

In a poem posted on Tammy's Hollywood Farm Girl blog titled "No More Censorship for Me," she bares her soul in verse, claiming she was "sideswiped and left mangled" by the split. She also addresses several of the Grammy winner's statements without actually calling her out by name.

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"I did not go anywhere, honey. And you and I both know it. Please stop telling the press it was mutual," she wrote on Thursday in an emotional epic that's not so much laden with subtext as it is with, well, text. "Things can be a long time coming to one and smash the hell out of another. Hit and run, not even staying to clean up the mess."

Tammy, best known for her co-starring roles on "Popular" and "The L Word," also takes issue with Melissa's assessment that they parted ways because, as the singer told the Big O, "It is about growing, it is about growth. It's about evolving myself."

It seems she believes that Etheridge, whom she wed in a legally non-binding ceremony in 2003 (she gave birth to twins three years later), put the demands of her career above those of her family.

"Disappearances into the hourglass-shaped wood with strings, never to finish a fight, never interested in clarifying, making sense, making it right, even finishing the fight, more interested in making something rhyme, time after time after time," she finger-points. "And later angsting that you and me, WE, it didn't work out, you evolved, you needed to be happy -- but really ... you withdrew your hands from family and intimacy to pluck those strings more."

Rails Tammy, "I'd rather hear 10,000 fans screaming my name in worship than hear my wife harp on me about my family intimacy issues, too, you know?"

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Then there's Etheridge's latest album, "Fearless Love," which Tammy says she knew was a sign their relationship was over.

"I even told you it was a breakup album and you laughed at me, you laughed and laughed," she recalls. "I heard 'Fearless' and I got sick. 'That's your breakup song with me,' I said to you. You got so angry with me, remember? And stomped off."

Tammy's share-time came after Melissa supposedly told a reporter that she wouldn't "censor" her ex on her blog.

"I thought I was to say nothing," snipes Michaels. "My bad."

But despite the hurt feelings that have bubbled to the surface, Tammy ends with a bittersweet adieu to her former flame.

"I still love that damn woman so much. I'm still trying to stop," she sighs. "I had a dream last where honey and I were fighting and going to get a divorce, and I woke up sobbing ... then I realized. Oh, it's true. And then what do you do? When the horrible feeling in the dream gets to stay even after you wake up?"

Concludes Tammy, "There. There is my truth as of today."

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