You lie next to your pillows in bed and you have trouble sleeping the way the moon does when it’s phasing out. I can see it in your nutty eyes the fear that lingers from the nightmares you still have from that day he took you and did harm like raging fires on the hills of a dried out California.

Unlike anything before you linger in your corner
wondering if you’ll ever be okay,
if this tragedy is something that’ll prevent someone,
or something from loving  you.

It causes havoc in your heart
and I can hear it in your voice
as it shakes from your mind
replaying those burning moments
that have left third-degree marks on your skin.
His hands swept through the surface of your skin
as if you were some prize he won at a county fair.

You pop like a balloon and tears run down your face
you scream for help,
but nothing is heard
you feel alone,
no one believes you
because well,
you asked for it,
right?


Wrong

Your skin wasn’t asking to be touched by fire,
leaving scars that don’t fade by time itself,
Your body didn’t ask to be taken advantage of like dry grass in a drought.


so now you live in fear,

fear that you aren’t worth being loved,

fear that you have to live for the rest of life reliving those moments of torment

I am here to tell you even the deepest wounds can heal,

It just needs the tender love of someone with a steady hand to hold the pieces in place,
you are a walking miracle as your face is hit by the warm sunlight and your eyes melt like honey.


You are the hero in your story,
you don’t need to be saved by anyone
Most importantly

Don’t Forget to love yourself,
as I have learned to love even the darkest bits of universe.

And life came in, crowned in blood, kissed and messed,
announcing itself with a cry.  
A girl-child, missing piece, fitted to my breast
her weight absorbed with my heart's sigh
She was fear personified, so heavenly blessed,
she made my terrified simpers her lullaby.

I felt my heart's core swell to absorb her scent,
and my eyes overflowed with love's cascading cry.
She cast light into my darkened chaotic hurt -
sparked a desire to wake, to live, to try,
clasping her whole fist around my ring finger,
holding me still; the whole world passing by.

And in her absence she left her shadow nestled in my chest.
And in my absence I hid my kisses in her sigh.
She grew with eyes of blue and a sympathetic smile -
all faerie dust on the wing of a butterfly,
an almost echo of a girl I once knew.
Except she didn't know that kind of cry,
wouldn't know anything less than rainbows,
than Christmas mornings and endless blue skies.

We tripped, clicked heels through the passing years,
from little girl to little woman in the blink of an eye,
till we were both wearing her shoes instead of mine.
And like Alice, she snapped from low to high
she grew - time sculpting curvy definitions
of who I hope and fear she will be.

She is golden curls and girlish giggles
ever wondering the where or the why
ever seeking to help, to heal, to try
to pour her heart into an undeserving world.
She has legs she claims to stand her ground
to be, to free, to hold her own.

And though like me, she is not me,
since she is so much braver than I.
Her finger is wrapped around her innocence
holding strong to consent or deny.
This life will make her cry her tears
and this world will realise her fears
but she will ever have the wings to fly
and I will ever ready to sing her our lullaby.