IF I FALL
Will you be there to catch me
Will you lift me up and brush me off
Will you help me see the good in my life
Will you keep me safe from myself

TODAY
Can you be my guide and show me the way
Can you help me find a reason to go on
Can you always be there to be my friend
Can you be the shoulder that I can cry on

CAN I RELY ON YOU
To be strong when I am weak
To listen when I need to vent
To tell me the truths I need to hear
To be the one that I can unmask for

MY FRIEND
I am thankful to have you as my friend
I am hoping that I have been a friend to you
I am grateful that you came into my life
I am sure life wouldn’t be the same without you.

I am going to Trust Christ, even if it seems hopeless on the earth.
Because Christ went to the Cross for us , so that his People will Live.
I am going to Worship him , even when my Life is upside down now.
Because the Christ our Lord and Master deserves all the Praises here.
I am going to Live Life for him, even though I would rather be with him.
Because this here Life may **** at times, I shall still persevere here.
Allowing him to use me to Minster to those that really needs him too.
I may not always seem like the Perfect child, but I know that he is Perfect.
So I shall obey him, for he knows my Future and everything else as well.
For He Loves us, even when we may not seem to be Love-able to others.

My name is Ashly (yes spelled without
the E)
I was born without a windpipe and was 3 months premature.
I underwent surgery for a tracheostomy and died on the operating table.
I was revived.
I was hooked up to many machines and my parents were told I wouldn’t live for more then 3 days...
If I would survive more then 3 days I would be hooked up to machines my whole life and be in a “vegetative state”
Doctors told my parents and family “I would never live to see my 18th birthday.”
I lived in the hospital for almost 2 years.
At age 2, I myself, ripped out my tracheostomy (which could have killed me)
My family rushed me to children’s hospital and the doctors decided to let the hole in my neck close and see what happens.
My doctors don’t know how I made it through the night or days after.
I went home after a couple weeks and that’s when I started living my life as a “normal” child.
All of my sisters were involved in dance classes, my parents( doctors didn’t agree) enrolled me in to classes.
        THATS WHERE MY LIFE CHANGED
Dance became my passion, along with gymnastics and musical theatre.
Something my family, doctors or even myself never thought I would EVER do.
On my 18th birthday it was a mixture of emotions.
I made a milestone that no one said I would ever see.
I competed in dance and gymnastics until I was 19 years of age as well as did over 60 musicals at my local theatre company.
I never thought I would ever have a boy love me because I had “too many problems” or even get married for that matter.
Fast forward, I am now almost 33 ( June .11th is my birthday)
Married for almost 8 years to my best friend.
Happy doesn’t even cover what I feel everyday waking up next to my love.
We may not have a “family” of our own but we are happy and in love over the moon with one another.

So why did I just ramble on with this?
Because I’m a MIRACLE and a SURVIVOR.
Even though I don’t remember much from my childhood and what I and my family had to endure, I have been fighter since my first breath.

I’M A SURVIVOR and I’VE MADE IT....

sometimes i realize
i am more than what i present myself as

a deeper wealth of validity
in a fragile shell of human

of femaleness tempered by
the male gaze that beats down on us all

and i more than know
i feel.

there is intensity here, underlying
fully and richly divine

in comparison to regularity
i am more than a name, a face, a soul

yet what is it that causes yearning

that brings sweetness in the heat
of desiring more than what i have

what is it that leads me up
out of the valley of my life and into possibility?

whispers on tongues, promises of more than
what i aspire to be

and within it all i acquire
and learn and continue to yearn

flatten your tongue
slip it between your teeth

n.

your little lips
forming an elipsis

o.

put them together
and may you declare
a word you’d so carefully deny—
no.

you spell it out
on table tops
shout it
from the rooftops

and when cursed hands
seek to defile your shrine
may you exclaim
"i am mine"