For as long as I can remember, I've heard the whispers. The silent 'but's, the sidelong sighs, and the backhanded compliments that go in smooth and rip out ragged.
         I believe everyone has undeniable self-truths. One of my truths is that I am fat. It took me twenty years to come to the conclusion that this truth was not something to be ashamed or afraid of. Unfortunately, my mother doesn't agree.
         It's not wholly her fault; she was raised to be ashamed of her body and the bodies of women in general. We were taught that tolerance equals love but not necessarily acceptance. My body was something to tolerate. I loved my body in the way I loved my pesky little brother, mostly because I was told I must.
         My mother's body language whispered to my pre-teen insecurities, "You're beautiful...but", or "I'm not saying you have to lose weight...but", or "You're perfect the way God made you, I just wish that...". She taught me to be ashamed and afraid of the way my body was developing, "I wish you hadn't filled out so fast, that you wouldn't wear that shirt because it brings attention to the fact that you have the chest of a twenty something at thirteen." "That skirt shows too much skin and that shirt was cut too low, don't wear a tank top because the boys will think of you as **** first and intelligent second."
         There's nothing wrong with being the fat smart girl, although I have noticed that it's never 'smart fat girl' because being fat is evidently more important than intelligence. Being fat isn't bad. Being smart is a super good thing. The problem arises when the fat smart girl is taught that she must whisper. When you don't tell that girl that being beautiful has nothing to do with what others think of you and that she is absolutely allowed to have an opinion of her own, she won't find her voice until she can't hear yours anymore.
         I have whispered all my life. I don't wear brightly colored nail polish so that you won't notice that my hands stutter. I whisper with my body language. I whispered "no" when he went too far. I whispered when I wanted to scream.
         And I wondered why no one ever heard me.

It has been two months

And more

Since I moved my mouth around

Your name

It clanked on my ears

And it

Tasted rusty on my tongue

Funny

How one syllable

Is so

Hard to think about saying

Crimson beats
Against alabaster bars
Bursting
With a life song
Of joy and blue skies
Of grief and thunder
But never flying from the cage
Sings without ceasing
Until death knocks
And with silver key and gentle hand
Removes it from its house
On the cold rocks
Crimson waits
Until
Perhaps
It sings again

I am torn

Between the missing and the hurting

The ache you left is still hollow and

I don’t know if time actually heals all wounds or if it just fills them

With one part pretending and seven parts regret and

The mountain of words that is rotting in my belly

Just waiting to erupt from my tired throat

I am torn

Between my heart and my mind

If I don't cage up my thoughts

All they do is wander back to you

My skin tells me that you will be back soon

But this skin has never touched you

It’s been too long

I have since scrubbed you out of my pores and

Washed you away from my sheets

Taken you down from my shelves and

Tucked you away from the light

But when I close my eyes at night they remember

The way your voice tasted when you laughed

I am torn

Between love and resentment

Sappy is sticking to me like a band-aid and

I’m too chicken to rip it off

I’m too stubborn to let myself forget because

If I forget that we existed,

If you never hold my eyes again,

If I let you slip through the cracks,

What will I have

Then

It is a question that I won’t let myself answer

Consider this

Time heals all

Wounds but in the healing

Wounds

When you see the sun
Rising over the trees...
Do you ever feel like crying?
When the snow is falling down. Down.
Down to cover the frozen ground...
Do you ever feel like smiling?
When you see the first star
Appear in the indigo night...
Do you ever feel like flying?
When thunder crashes and rain
Pours out of the sky...
Do you ever feel like dancing?
When the bluest sky you've ever seen
Peeks out from beneath the clouds...
Do you ever feel like laughing?
When the trees reach out
To catch the birds of the sky...
Do you ever feel like falling?
When the leaves flutter down from above
And paint the grass with red and orange...
Do you ever feel like twirling?
When flowers bloom with the morning dew
And shine their colors bright...
Do you ever feel like believing?
When the wind tosses the waves
And plays with your hair...
Do you ever feel like singing?
When the sun sets behind the hills
And the day comes to an end...
Do you ever feel like crying?

I've always wanted to be
Awakened.
Maybe even by a
Knight in shining armor or a
Handsome Prince in disguise.
But here I am,
Sleeping,
Curled around
My bruised and bleeding soul.
The tower walls
Are impossibly high
Carefully built by
My own broken hands
So that
No adventurer, however brave
No knight, however bold
No prince, however cunning
Can scale the thorn cover heights
And wake me.
My breath,
Slow and even.
My heart,
Scarred and beaten.
My soul,
Locked and sleeping.
Oh,
Slumber on
Sweet sweet, sleeper,
For no one will
Wake you when
Life
Is over.

Under the blue, blue sky
In a meadow of green
Sat an old oak tree
And he sat and he sighed
And he longed for the sea.
"Surely the wind and
the waves," thought he,
"would bring back some much
needed youth to my leaves."
So he sighed
And he sat
And he longed to escape
The blue, blue sky
And the meadow of green.

                  Along came the Carpenter
                  To the meadow of green,
                  "What a fine piece of oak!
                  Why, there's enough for a table
                  and perhaps even a swing."
                  So, the Carpenter cut down the old tree
                  And when he had fashioned
                  The beautiful things,
                  He set them outside on a
                  White sandy beach.

"Oh, me! Oh, my!" wept
The old oak tree,
"I've come to the sea
but the sea hates me!
She whips me with sand
and she blasts me with surf--
To think that I wished
to come to this horrible place!"
And he groaned
And he sighed
And he wished for the
Blue, blue sky and the
Meadow of green.
But mostly he wished
To just be a tree.