Trees carelessly spill apple blossoms, carpeting the ground I walk on with white and pink petals like drops of paint, tossed across the landscape of spring The air carries with it the flowering scents of a fertile earth pollen itches my throat, but I breathe it in deeply fill my lungs with it’s new life [...]
When I was 15, I was in a “residential treatment center”. Basically, I lived with other teen girls in a big house and we went to school and therapy together. It was actually a very nice one (thanks mom). But the point of this story is this- one day during group therapy we were talking [...]
I have to speak. Every day I see more clearly. Once, I was a child who thought she knew the truth of her transgressions. Then, I was a young woman who covered her past with shame. Now, I am a woman who sees. I accepted the narrative my abusers gave me. I saw myself through [...]
The brown bark of the trees look nearly black from the heavy rain soaking their branches The top of the trees reach skyward like long, bony hands against the almost-winter slate sky The sun has risen just now but the gray covers it's brilliance My baby presses close to me for morning milk And I [...]
We walk back down the natural tunnel, over the wide road, past the lake filled with lily pads, and back through the wildflowers. I stop again, close my eyes; and breathe.
This poem came to me in a "steam of consciousness" as many of my poems do. I feel it's about survival of abuse, and coming back stronger than before.
I was thinking about a man I once knew, but this story is about the girl who brought us together; and who we both loved.
