I hear both your words and the unspoken thoughts behind them.
I hear the whispers of judgment that fall between the cracks in the floor and are felt from the other end of the telephone.
While I don't need your acceptance, it's still hard to accept that, as your daughter, you still don't see me.
What you focus on is what I lack in your eyes, and all that needs to be "fixed."
I am so much more than my shortcomings, and I deserve love and respect, even as an imperfect being.
I realize that now.
Yet, after all these years, your judgment still stings, and my heart continues to ache with the pain it brings.
So, I love you from a distance, so that I can safeguard my heart, so that I can remain whole.
I refuse to dwell among those who seek to undermine me.
I have won too many wars to fight another battle with myself.

-Rhia Clay

I come from the dust,
once a part of a star,
A spark in the infinite,
a whisper from afar.

Each little piece,
scattered, set free,
Aiding the birth
of what’s yet to be.

From the fire of the cosmos,
to the earth's gentle fold,
I carry the stories
the universe told.

Now, as I breathe,
as I dream, as I grow,
I weave the great tapestry
in the threads that I sew.

A fragment of stardust,
yet whole in my place,
I am both the fleeting
and eternal embrace.

sometimes your heart
stretches
its seams and you have to
pour it all out before it
bursts.

i can feel it now…
but i take the sharpened end
of my pencil tip and i pierce
a hole in my heart so that i do not
explode and then implode again like
a supernova, then a black hole,
crushing in on myself.

but i take that pencil tip and i
slip it through the hole until it is
all crimson dripping,
perfect! now i can write all of it
write it all out so that i never overfill
again.

oh no.

it does not erase.