Every other woman comes before his own daughter.
They have so much more to offer.
What good is a woman he can't touch?
I am always too much and never enough.

Forgiving my father without hearing him say "I'm sorry"
Is my super power.

This girl I met in the bathroom at the bar put glitter on my eyes.
I only met her 2 min ago as we passed at the stall.
When I came out she was reapplying her lipstick and she casually says
"I think this would look so good on you"
She walks over and gently rests her hand on my cheek as she puts it over my eyelids,
I see stars fall out of my eyelashes
And she says
"Amazing. It was meant for you"
She tells the girl behind me she loves her hair color
And we all trade smiles.

This is the universal language of a woman.

I killed my father's daughter.
So now whos going to play opposite you?

I've already grieved her death,
It's been 7 years since I buried her.

This doesn't hurt me anymore.

But I can tell by how you hold yourself around me,
It hurts you.

There are cracks in the bones
And flaws in the foundation.
They tell me we are so lucky
We have eachother.
But our talks are never honest.
I walk into your home and I feel the furthest away from home.
You think if I put the hypersensitivity back on, and the fawning suit I used to wear it means we are back to being ourselves.
When all it is,
Is love on your terms again.

Thankyou for consistently teaching me to listen to my needs and learn to implement boundaries

If I were to do girlhood again,
I'd have more anger.
I'd flirt with kerosene
And encourage myself to light the match.
The bridges would burn and I wouldn't feel one bit of hesitation.
I'd feel the feelings
And scream them at the top of mountains.
Everyone would hear me
And I wouldn't apologize to a single soul.
My parents would give me space,
They would ask for my attention but never assume it's available.
I'd feel alive
it'd be written all over my skin.
And whenever someone asked me about what those words meant, I would tell them.
My tone would be firm, and gentle.
I would expose every syllable
Without fear.
Because being known for who I truly was,
Wouldn't be scary
Like it is now.

I'll never tell you this but,
I am still mad at you for not seeing me
When I needed you to see me.

I learned that I had to earn your love
From a very young age,
And it's grown into a blooming
Resentment
That tells me you're not safe.

There are so many times where we don't know how to decipher and seperate the obligation from choosing commitment.
Do we do this because
Soul mates?
Or do we do it because we said we were going to, and to end it now means we both lose.

If we could just be in love with eachother,
This could work.

Purification has always been an act of violence.
And I crave it.
From the very beginning
when I was told about the
corruption between my thighs
and the way it seduces others
who are broken like I am.
I daydream about starting from the bottom with the rough hands and mouths,
The words that cut the deepest.
The bruises you can't hide.

That is how I start over.

I used to say
"If that isn't love,
Then I don't know what is."

And then I realized,
I don't know what love is.

I was small and thin but cheeks were flushed, and cherub like still. My blonde hair in loose curls, always a mess but still framed my little face so well. My eyes blue, always sparkling. Every picture of me you can see my excitement in the attention, soaking up the memory of being seen and captured in time. I would show off a new funny face or grin, happy to just be there.
I watched my mother dress for church every Sunday, and comb her hair up into some kind of bun to keep it out of her face. Her hair was brown, not like mine. But soft, and just as beautiful. Her long sleeved blouse always pressed without a wrinkle and her long, flowing skirt covered every bit of her legs. I was in awe of her. So feminine, so radiant. Her skin was always glowing and for some reason my childhood brain associated that with God. She must be such a godly woman.

I remember the first time I was told about what having my body meant for the men in our church. What it meant for me.
That women must soften ourselves and cover, and the evils that were prophesied as a consequence for not doing so - would haunt me until they came true.
Men would fail at my feet.
Their walk with God would be disturbed.
I would be punished for indulging impurity,
Even if by accident.
I was a walking sin, constantly in battle with whatever demon was trying to push it out beneath my clothes and from under my tongue.
I was afraid all the time.

I remember the first time my youth pastors wife told me that I needed to be more careful. She said, your clothes are getting too tight, your sleeves are too short, your knees always show when you sit down. "Remember that we need to be careful, you don't want to be seen as that girl."
I was scared they already saw me as that girl.
That I had already messed up.

They smell it on us, you know.
I could tell by the way they'd look at me,
Or the way they'd put their hands on the back of my neck to pray for me.
When Brother would give me some change for being
"Such a good girl during service tonight"
And he would place it in my hands,
Closing my fingers over it and squeezing twice.
I felt his hot breath in my face and could see the words forming in his mouth begging to push past his teeth.
He saw me for what I was.

That change would go in Sundays offering, and everytime I'd get dressed I'd be a bit more careful than last time.

When I reached 15 I could feel that raging monster inside of me, constantly telling me to lean into whatever power I had.
I'd linger near the men a bit longer
I'd smile a bit softer and look them in the eyes as they spoke.
I'd puff up my lips ever so slightly and wonder if they'd notice and think about how they'd feel.

The more I leaned into those thoughts, the harder I tried to starve that woman out of me.
That Jezebel.
If they no longer saw me as full, maybe I could disappear any bit of woman I had grown into and then never again would I tempt the demon in them again. They'd be safe.
I got as small as I could.
I prayed as hard as I could.
I felt like I was doomed, praying to a God who never spoke back and never reassured me of what I was doing.
I felt alone.

I spent 16 years in the upside down with those sermons and the offering baskets and the lessons and the long looks, the bodies brushing against me and firm hands going out of there way to join me in prayer. All in the name of God and the hope that I'd never fall into what I was told I was.

Now I eat, and I sing,
I don't pray but I speak all the time, outloud.
All it takes is a daily battle with God's demons,
Ignoring them insisting I am but a body and a distraction.
That its my fault the moment he saw me.

It felt like the kind of thrill you get from jumping off the cliff and into the dark water below, all these thoughts about not knowing what's underneath the surface but so excited for that first splash as you break the tension and sink down.
It was like watching a favorite movie for the first time and knowing that everytime I watch it after this, it'll never be the same.

I could never not think about kissing you.
You'd look at me, and if I let myself glance down to your mouth I'd be lost in watching your lips move.
Thinking about the first time you leaned in to kiss me at that stop light, and how it feels when you're laying on my lap and you kiss my thighs so soft.
You made me feel soft, everywhere.

If I could do it all over again,
The kisses, the movies in bed,
The drunken fights, the crying,
Putting my arm around you in public
Hearing you say I love you,
Watching thunderstorms on the deck,
Seeing you look at me like you were so desperate to make it work, but knew there was nothing that could help

If I could do it all over again,
The texts from you that ripped my heart into pieces,
The goodbyes and the last hug I ever gave you.
I'd do it.

There is more safety in the destruction I know than the destruction I don't see coming.

I'd let you do it again.

I feel the feelings.
I ignore the feelings.
I set the feelings on fire.
Mourn the feelings,
Share the feelings,
Bury and forget the feelings.

If I let the pain sit inside of me it just rips away at my muscles and leaves bruises on all my bones.
Instead I resurrect it from the deepest parts of me so it can leave,
Find somewhere else to live.
I let it live in my hands and my art
And I let it release through crying in theaters, watching you enjoy me, and screaming into my pillow when I feel angry.
I let it travel through me with music that gets put on repeat until I'm sad, then I turn it off and move on into everything else.
I see it through windows looking at strangers, with their dogs and their babies. With their hand holding and their phone scrolling. Their headphones in tight and avoiding eye contact.
I wonder if other people notice it too.
Sometimes I picture all of our stuff just floating around eachother,
All of us choosing to be oblivious to something that is connected between each of us,
Like cans on a string.

Sometimes,
Someone pics up the other can.

I'm the strongest when I'm soft.
I love best when I am loved.
I am free when I'm alone.
I am most me when I am with you.

I fly highest with the kiss
And sink deepest with the rest.

I've had some hands that have touched me, break me.
And they live inside of me still.
Sometimes when I listen too closely I can hear everything they said to me and it takes everything I have to remind myself not to listen.
I want to love completely someday and without being afraid.
But every person I look up into I'm worried they have a mask on.
I've seen lovely and beautiful people but all my hands want to do is search for that corner of the mask that's lifting so I can catch it before it scares me again, deeper than before.
A habit I can't seem to break.

I cry easily because
I come from a long line of women
Who spent a lifetime swallowing their anger, their fear and their pain.
They grew old knowing the taste of their own feelings and needs they wished to have met.
They swallowed their sorrow and grief for their own inner child and bred the same habits into new baby girls, creating soft little beings and secretly wishing they'd find a way out.

I cry easily because I come from women who hid their tears and held them back, who held the hands of the men who used those hands against them.
I cry for the women who never understood the feelings they had inside of themselves, and never knew their own strength.
For the women who were diluted and pushed into a box built out of "Love thy husband" and "Obey".
The women who grew up waiting for the day they were handed off to a man who would make her life worth living, and turn her into a real woman by giving her babies to birth.

I cry for them.

He's right when he says no one will love me or be for me like he has been and I'm devastated over it because its as if he chooses everytime regardless of whats going on inside my heart and body. But what do I do. Where do I go.

There's nothing and it's nowhere. It's nowhere and it's now.

The difference between last month and right now is honestly alarming.
But I have to admit, I'm impressed with how not alarmed you seem.
I guess I'll just keep writing mine out here for strangers to see so I can be calm about it too.

You meant it when you said you weren't afraid of me, but I didn't know it also meant not afraid to forget.

Sometimes I wonder if words really do mean anything.
One minute ago it was all the moments every moment
And in this minute there's none.
But words have to be something,
Right?
It's all I have now.

I feel like I'm falling from the sky and no one sees it hurts to burn this bright. "Oh look, it's a meteor!" No it's just me again, can you wave back this time?
You're always so quiet.

My body is made up of the dark things but underneath my skin are the light things, and sometimes when everyone is quiet and distracted with themselves
I peek under there at the pastel colors and the softness of winged things flying around aimlessly.
It's a beautiful little secret that I keep buried in my dreams where I get to feel like a kid again but with all the knowledge I need to keep me safe.
There are fields and sun, and the perfect amount of a breeze.
I get to run, roll down hills, get my knees ***** and wash them off in a river.
I nap in the tall grass.
I can smell when the rain is coming
And I never run from it.

It's my favorite place.

My skin crawls into bed and wraps up in the thick of it,
Nesting.
I'm still so soft and tender,
I wonder what it would be like to feel tough.

My heart has become less creature and more "trying her best" in the last 6 months or so.
Less about sacrifice
And more about hope.

When I was younger I would hide in a similar nest and pile on the heaviest blankets so I could see what it felt like to be secure.
My legs curled up and the bottoms of my feet almost resting on the back of my thighs.
I'd grieve my moments.
The moments of being a kid and laughing and climbing trees. When most boys were stupid and gross, except my best friend because we would lay in the grass and look at clouds and laugh about how he could never see what I saw.

Now I hide in this nest, less to dream about the past and more to dream of a future where I feel safe on the outside of these blankets.

I am mad when people think I am incapable, moody, hopeless, dramatic, destructive..

But I can't stop being those things.

Being small never suited me and being anything besides indulgent and in constant search mode sounds like the worst way to live
So I'm just gonna do the thing I've always done and feel the things I love to feel then feel what I hate feeling and one day when I'm old or in that moment before I fall off a cliff, or walk into the street not noticing the car begging to meet me - I'll just think wow, she really spent her life in the center of the things the rest of them were afraid of.

If you see women like me and tell me you hate her body,
And then insist I sleep naked next to you at night with your hands taking permission to wander where they want to

How do I ever look at my skin and think ok this is mine, she's mine. All mine.
How do I touch her ever again

I slept on a bed of nails for years,
And crawled across floors of broken glass.
I swallowed the stars nightly with the same wish in mind everytime.
Surviving is ******* ugly
But it doesn't scare me.
I'll display my grudges in a dainty little China cabinet until I'm ready to burn the bridge you built to me.

My entire body has been made and remade and deconstructed by little things I've picked up from different people along the way.
Different people create different feelings inside me and sometimes it's beautiful, and sometimes it ***** the life out of me.
Sometimes I get lost in the small fragments of new ideas and touch that I forget reality is where I'm supposed to live.
Sometimes it feels more natural to be in whatever kind of emotion limbo I've fallen into, than to try and swim back to the top and attempt to explain it to someone who won't ever see through my glass chest - and read the stories I've stored in there.

It's meant to be shared.

My therapist told me multiple times that our unhealed trauma wounds create a cycle where we obsessively recreate the damage we endured as children.
What a strange thought, that the worst pain I've ever felt is something my body forever remembers and wants to repeat it over and over.

I'm tired of her.

Ive always been the softest thing around me and every person who's buried themselves in me never even waited for an invite.

And then you were there
Totally perfect, and different
And I didn't feel worried about what you thought of me.

Then you kissed me just to kiss me.
And you told me I looked lovely.

They pollute me
And divide me
I felt watered down my whole life.

Then you kiss me
Pretty baby
Just to kiss me
Not to bring me to bed.

Everything's all of a sudden
Sweetness
It was simple
I don't wonder
I just kiss you to kiss you.

I wrote my own vows to myself today and it's full of memories - of picking ripe strawberries and eating the first one out of pure impatience for the juicy taste of summer to hit my tongue. Grass stains on my knees and elbows from rolling down dandelion littered hills. Sweat rolling down my back from running down the side walk after the ice cream truck. Hair wild and half falling out of my braids because my best friend and I spent the afternoon swinging on the swings, seeing who could fly higher and communicate with the birds. Climbing trees, up so high I can only hear my heartbeating in my ears.

The vows are a promise to keep these close to my heart and to never be anyone but that little girl who was always her wild self, could never keep her skirt down or her legs crossed at the ankles. Her socks always ***** and her shirt untucked.

That's when she's at her best. Her most beautiful and pure.

She's mine forever.

Sometimes I think back to every man who has ever touched me and I wonder why God decided to put me on this earth just to exist as an energy source for them.

I take the time to expose who actually am and I am met with eyes scanning my body and hands looking to insert themselves into any spot closest to making it's way inside my body.

They say it's what's inside that counts but if thats the truth the why is it the more inside they are, the less I want to even be here.

I am so hungry every single day
Every word I say takes a bit out of me and by the end of it all I'm left with an aching gut and a brain that can't think straight.
I can't eat because I'm sick
I'm sick because I can't eat enough
And the cycle repeats itself every 24 hours sometimes
I'm going insane.

Yesterday I felt over flowing and whole,
Today I feel like I am too much.
The cycle is forever I guess.

Manic me needs to suffocate for days to feel complete.
Small me needs a safe nest.

The bones are tired.

They're tired and they need you.

Sometimes they separate from body and take their time traveling across oceans and up over mountains,
Coming back to me with arms full of new things.

I'm running out of room.

I'll always be the nurterer and the comforter, the seat at the table that little humans call mom and the others lean on.

I'll never trade those words for anything different.

But I know I'll always have a secret pocket of things I feel inside, that don't fit out here in life.

I'll always be a dreamer of colorful and impossible things.
I'll be a lover of many people, spreading myself so thin that I come close to the edge of that cliff over and over in this lifetime.

I want to have that vague taste of desperation under my tongue, forever.
I want to write about my heart feeling broken, about how a strangers kiss changed my entire life, about grief and all those little things that give joy.

I want to feel summer rain on my skin and not be able to think about anything but that sensation for moment upon moment.

I want to get goosebumps when he leans in too close and have all the scenarios of how he will kiss me to go through my head.

I want to cry when I see a mother lose their child. I want to feel my insides being torn out and then having to live without it.

I want to taste something sour and then go back for more, because the feeling inside my mouth and against my cheeks feels a little bit like being alive.

I'll never let these things go.
I keep them organized and quiet in the back of my head and the middle of my body so that everyday I'm reminded that the human I am is so much bigger inside.

Inside this body is an incredible amount of the biggest things you could ever think of, and I carry it well.

I wish I could put enough of the right words together to explain the feeling I have inside of my body when I am close to you.

I'll manage to get 3 or 4 words into sentence form and then I'm back to cloudy eyes and cotton insides.

I miss you but my brain still recognizes the threat and won't allow me to feel much more than a glimpse of that at a time.

I crave the salt of the ocean the way I crave the skin on your back,
The constant crash of the waves against the shore and your hands grabbing at the sides of me, as if you have never felt anything quite so soft.

There's always a quiet rhythm to the way you love me.

Like the feeling of when it's raining and your driving somewhere you have never been, so you take the time to listen to the steady movement of the water being wiped back and forth off the windshield.

Something to stop your mind from racing. Your eyes lose focus but your body loves the familiar feeling in your head you have from the wet air, and the heat being pointed at your feet. You can't really feel your face but the bottom half of you gets increasingly warm. And it slowly spreads. Up, and into your belly.

And then we dive in.
Past the waves,
Into isolation.
Into the middle of the blue.

I could spend days floating with you.

Let the world swim beneath us,
And the sky above us.

Dark below and light above.

Me and you.

Born into a role they never would have volunteered for,
Laying their lives down for people they'll never meet -
With their cabinets full of guns
Claiming their lives
One by one.

Bow your head and pray
For another life lost,
A child you'll never save.

But hey,

Atleast you still have your guns.

Cry your empty tears
Down your hollow cheeks
Give the grieving moms a ribbon
To show your support.
Change your profile picture to an
"RIP innocent lives"
As if that says enough about the debt they've paid,
For your rights.

We bury our outrage
With their children
For another day when
The time is right
To dig up their tiny coffins
And fight.

Im not sure how else to explain to you that I fully understand when you say things like "God is love, people are bad" and "God loves you still even when you're angry", it's pouring gasoline on an already large fire.

I already spent 16 yrs asking for him to give any amount of affirmation so I could calm the mental suffering and constant questions,
And feeling in my gut telling me this didn't fit.

I already spent 16 yrs with my ears open trying my hardest while listening to the absolute deafening silence I got in return.

Is that not enough for you?

Can I have my body and mind back now.
Can I use my voice for other things that bring my joy instead of
Defending and reasoning with you on why I'm allowed to make my own choices now.

My childhood was a mixed bag of
Climbing trees
And barbies,
With a handful of fire and brimstone thrown in.
I was taught that men are divine and I make a great support system just being a good woman.

Tall, broad shoulders
Pushed back so he seems larger than the body he was born in.
Sweat on his forehead and his hands so firmly placed on each side of the pulpit.
Talking about a language only he can summon in you,
Using his holy hands to pull it out of your mouth.
Stay still.
My body is God's.
My mind is lost.
If I have nothing else,
Atleast I have faith.

I used to look in the mirror and see someone else's body. Their eyes weren't mine and they would mouth words to me, knowing I never learned how to read lips.
It became a silent game of me studying every crack in your face and you dedicating every moment to try and teach me how to hear you.

My mom would tell people I had an imaginary friend, and that it was
"So cute" how I would sit for hours with someone no one else could see.

I never figured out a way to tell her it was just me the whole time.

Women walk around
Sleep deprived
And starving over the latest diet.
Holding their keys between their
Fingers as they clench their hand into a fist, because it's late and it gets dark so fast lately.
They've had hands grab their waist to move them out of the way.
Men who tuck her hair behind her ear and tell her she is "so beautiful, I don't even understand why you wear makeup."

Spending our time with
Grown men
Who use us as therapists,
And bank accounts.
Grown men
Who replace their mothers with us
And demand our time, love and energy anytime we accidentally make eye contact with them.
Holding onto the heel of our shoes as we climb, telling us to slow down.
Asking us to come back to where they stand because that's where they find we fit best.

Grown men who,
after all of that,
Ask us to smile more
And wonder why we don't want to **** them.

When I was 21 and had just given birth to my first baby,
I got a blank postcard in the mail and on the front was a picture of a woman in a dress, standing in a field of yellow.
The longer I stared at it the less it made sense,
She became less and less familiar.

4 years later I was holding my second baby,
And I got another postcard, nothing written on it this time either but on the front was the same woman.
This time she sat on a bench in the middle of a storm.
I felt a strange and intense need to tell her to get up and walk back home -
She seemed to be paralyzed by all the grey surrounding her and I thought if someone would just yell her name, she would remember who she was, how her body worked, she would wake up and realize it's time to leave.
But my throat would close up everytime I tried to say anything,
And I got too tired.
My body started to hurt,
My heart felt like it was buried too deeply inside me.
I glanced up from the card and saw some clouds in the distance,
I thought
"That's odd.."
But then looked at my sweet boy and
Told myself to forget about it,
You can concentrate on this feeling and be a real mother and those clouds will pass by,
You probably won't even notice them as they float over you.

But I forgot to finish building the house before the clouds came and before I knew it was were living, eating, sleeping right in the middle of the worst storm I had ever seen.
Nothing made sense anymore.
My family was inside the tornado,
Oblivious.
My loves were outside watching closely
And I was flying around
And around
And around
Dying for my feet to touch the ground.

I thought, maybe I can just get used to the spinning.
Do I maybe like the spinning?
I started to forget what he looked like,
And sometimes I'd pass by his hand he had reaching out for me, and not even realize it had been another year spent traveling around this world.

I loved them while I hated myself.
I loved them so much that I wanted to die for them.
I loved them so much that when he held me, or they sat in my lap, or someone said
"I love you mom"
This entire body would scream
And the pain I felt in every corner
Was enough to make me want to run away forever.

And I would leave,
And fly,
And spin around
Watching them grow
Hearing him say
"Please come back".

Now I'm here. 6 years later.
And my skin soaks up their light.
I use the word love openly and spent the time I needed to finish  building our home, so that whenever that tornado in the distance looks like it's getting closer,
I lock our doors and shut the curtains
And we lay with eachother telling stories, talking about our joy, and feeling the comfort of closeness. The freedom of vulnerability. The calmness of attachment.

I'll wear these bricks on my shoes until the day I leave,
So I'll never fly away again.

I'm building these wings so that next time you say my name and cause that shift of the ground beneath my almost stable feet, I can hover until you're done.

Maybe sometime I can fly away
And feel free.

Words are easy,
Feelings are hard.
Patterns are familiar,
Changing how you cope is just you lighting yourself on fire and then hoping you set the bucket of water close enough that you can reach it in time.

You never even saw the bucket,
But your therapist told you exists.
And they wouldn't lie,
Would they?

Being a child was burned to the ground the moment he sat me on his lap.
Being a teenager was searching for the next person to make me feel like he did.
Being a young adult was acting out the past in a new relationship with someone who had no idea what was coming.
Being a mother has been reliving trauma and healing.
Being a partner has been learning to let someone love me.
Being a human means I am still all of these people.

I'm writing out a bill for the last 25 years of therapy.
Your IOU fell through
And I pretended I didn't keep track.
I abandoned my post and thought
"Thatll do it."
If I put a province between us
We could start over and make up
Our own separate stories about
My childhood.

We could forget about the late nights of talking you off the ledge of all those buildings you built yourself.
Each one closer to the clouds.
You would look at me, tears in your eyes, saying things like
"I love you" and
"Goodbye" in the same sentence.
And I didn't understand how those words could be so close together,
Doesn't one negate the other?
If you leave, was there ever any love?

I'd watch you love these other women who would never be my mother,
And they would eat up every night with hours of phone conversations behind your closed bedroom door.
You'd come to me in love,
Proposals being imagined in your head,
All this beauty after so many painful days of you breaking your heart over and over.

Within weeks you'd be back with me, and we would book another appointment.
I'd sit across from you,
Digesting every word
Making notes for my future loves
So I would know what to do.

Love and leave.
Love and leave.

My skin is dead weight,
Keeping the person inside of me so still.
My tongue, glued to the bottom of my mouth so all I can do is make noise and it means nothing to anyone.
I won't move a muscle
Because it told me if I ever did
It'd come back and **** my family.
And even though they'll never know,
I still pretend they say thankyou everyday.

Whoever writes my obituary is going to say such lovely things.

And no one will ever know what my trauma did to them, or to me.

My bed is where I let myself drown a bit
It's where I let myself be soft
Folding my legs in like the corner of the sheets
And letting you get close
But never to my face.
You can get in even closer if you touch my skin the way I tell you to
And let me perform the way I've been taught to
So that after every show you can clap for me
Tuck my hair behind my ears
Kiss my eyelashes
And tell me you've never felt the inside of someone the way you feel mine.
It's existing and it could almost be called life.
The trail of colors and feelings you trace along my spine and my hips so that I can always look in the mirror and remember every single thing that ever created this body.

You love this body.
You love it so well that you think it loves you too.