Summer’s time has come and gone
The walls, floorboards release a yawn
With nine months then to recoup, recover
From being a home, just for the summer.

Eloquent memories freshly remain
Of friends who nestled within her frame
A cabin of bunk beds, cubbies, fresh air
Where girls unwound with little a care.

Her crevice now holds a left-behind letter
Whose parchment hardens with winter’s weather
Yet the season’s sleet knows the warmer reflection
Of late night secrets and encouraged imperfection.

Spring has sprung most slowly for some
The evergreens exclaim a harmonious hum
Her wooden steps defrost, and patiently await
The coming of campers to the cardinal state.

Fall, winter, and spring all pass
Warm rays have woken the mountains at last
Each cabin’s frame stands taller, *****
While girls, all ages, reconnect.

Anna Blake

Our sweet mother, taken away so soon -
gasping for breath as the heavy weight of perfection sat on her chest.
Even in death, she is perfect -
used to her full potential by many men seeking warmth but not love.

No, never love.

These men nestled inside her and made her full - full of life but not the kind that makes you love yourself when looking in the mirror.

The type of life they filled her up with was the kind that nearly killed her in the delivery room - crying out as she was ripped apart and her child was taken by strange hands. Hands of men.

These men ****** her and ****** her and ****** her until the last drop of life she had left disappeared from her eyes.
These men are the ones who look into her coffin and murmur, she was so beautiful.
So perfect.

She died knowing she was not beautiful, could never be beautiful. Beautiful was a word uttered from men's ***** mouths, a word that had been tainted unknowingly.

She died gasping for breath, needing to say those words before she left this world. Needing to say it, needing to say it, needing to say it...
I am not beautiful.

Here lies love,
our mother who will never be beautiful or perfect for as long as I am breathing in this world.
Here lies death,
our real mother who was always more than beautiful. More than perfect.

There's not a single word to describe what she really was. But never beautiful.
No, never perfect.

You don’t know what it’s like to dig and dig and dig in the dirt with bare hands
digging toward fecundity
I am trying to find the honest words
Buried under our mother’s bones
But all I have now is the dirt under my nails, and
because I am a woman
I set my bucket of soap and water down hard
I scrub the blood out of the wood
My knees tear open from supporting my own weight and soak the floor
Every clean movement forward is erased by the brushstrokes of my own body
Please
Don’t tell me you know something about housekeeping
My body is an apology I can’t scrub clean

I drank the sea
No one was watching but me
The salt crystallised my bones
But the water made me free
Shells covered my lips and eyes
Seaweed lay as hair
And slid down throat
Sand layered like skin
Pages of a diary
Formed by waves on waves
I smelt of fish
And open air
I raged all over
Threw my spitting hands to the sun
Let it evaporate away my sins
I tossed my hair to the wind
And danced pebbles as my feet
I rolled with the tide
Tossed here and there
Fishermen tried to ****** parts of me
But I eluded them
Flowed ever faster to the shores
Picked men from rocks and threw them back
Sank deep and long
swam out again, to the deep
I rolled with whales
sifted krill through my teeth
tumbling currents rinsed my skin
Quick-silver flashing in my belly
coast to coast I roamed and rushed
and as the darkened tide turned,
I slipped out again to the deep
not content to walk when I could *swim

She took the beatings, the
Blood smearing her skin
Took the lashings, and the slaps,
And hid her grin
The first time a man gripped her thighs,
Ripped them apart, and forced his way
Past her heart, numbing her to love,
Then threw her away
Numbed down deep to her soul,
She almost broke, almost cried,
Almost tied the knot tight, and
Almost,
almost,
almost died
She gave birth to generations
Told them her stories and
Unto them she bequeathed
All her spirit and her worries
She reached past the pain,
Pushed past the slaked lust
Turned herself inside out
Despite the bruises and distrust
She built her walls high,
Enough to endure the storms life
Somehow thought she could survive
And relished a calm from the strife
A destiny couldn’t be resisted
Nevertheless, she persisted

The stake they put her to
encased in iron bound
Tightened with hay and perfumed with betrayal
The white lace adorned the flesh
The flesh that tempted him into manhood
Now a martyr he would make of her!
Joan de Arc
In no time did he tender the flames to her pyre
They lapped and licked at her
She wept a while, for her heart was broken
Her mind was broken
That which all she came to be was broken
and sent to burn
Hellfire came and took her
The white lace and blonde locks eaten
No screams, for the tears silenced her
and the creamy palate of flesh was cinders
It faded to ash and fell before their blind eyes
Blinded by their families sake
The boy soldier turned his eyes astray
but it had came to pass
she was right, Her words were true
No fire could burn she!
For she was the fire!, A she wolf, A shield Maiden
You cannot burn that which has lighting in her heart
and fire in her soul!
She arose from the ashes naked and pure
Golden and burning like a solar storm
The boy soldier marveled watched on
From her tortures, her torments
She rose higher above her death, her corpse, her ashes
To a new her!
Smothered in battle scars!
Her eyes a pit of combustion
Her past was cinders, her future was burning
Her crimson lips parted to roar with all the fire of a dragon
I am a woman, a warrior, a soldier! I am the fire!
Her fiery wings spread, the flames embraced her beauty
Her eyes gleamed like sunflare
She was the woman known as Tartarus
The woman all men should fear but desire, Valkyrie
She was the Phoenix rising, rising from the ashes
**Remember the pain, but learn the lesson

A woman is a rabbit
She lives with notions determined by her ***
Thus constrained to her Father’s or husband’s will
Hunted by the predator who hungers for her flesh
Hunts in the dark of the concrete woodland
She is forced to be silent and suffer lack of wit
Forsooth her body is a puppet by the Male hand!
She forced to wed and breed
She faces a society that would **** her
And condemn her for her free mind
Tongues of blinded minds order her to undress or cover up
She must walk like that of prey
With a keen eye over her shoulder
She must console herself to the ideas and thoughts
That one day or one night she may be killed, murdered
She must play the dumb beauty, the cow on market, the ***** on heat
She isn’t powerful, or strong, or noble
She is a Rabbit….


A Rabbit is a Woman
A creature of God made out to be cute and small
Butchered, abandoned if illness takes hold, or stomachs are gluttonous
Hunted by great beasts for Frith gave them their gift to slay!
Tortured by experiment, at the will of a child they are rejected
Forlorn by notions of uneducated fools
They hide and huddled for man is their greatest enemy
This mammal is that of prey
With a keen ear scanning the hills
Bright eyes foresee the predator that lurks
They must be silent, they must be sweet, they must breed, or food to feed
They are forced to die! Forced to live!
Abused, beaten, slaughtered, they know in any moment they could be killed
They must hide their instincts, in filthy bed holes of hutches
They are forced to succumb to disease, hardly nursed
They must be petite, they mustn’t chew, they mustn’t ****
They aren’t intelligent, or strong, or noble
They are Woman…


A Rabbit is a Woman, A Woman is a Rabbit
Both hunted, beaten, abused…
Both by society and mankind used
Both are powerful, intelligent, strong and noble
I am Woman, I am Rabbit