reframing femininity
“I killed my brother! I killed my brother!” I scream as I run into the street after the ambulance. “No, honey, you did not kill your brother,” my kind neighbor, Lois, pulls me close her voice purring into my numb unhearing ears. “He’ll be okay. It was an accident…an accident.” So many times I’ve been…
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I belong to the Midwest plains California, North Dakota porch swings on hot nights playing basketball with my brother, my dad, not my mother in the moonlight is where I am home.
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I usually want to look away, but this time, I can’t. The lights are on and my alibis are nowhere to be found.
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As I sit in stillness in the sweet little oasis that I call my backyard, I am filled with joy to share the stirrings of my tender, grateful heart. Being outside in God’s creation has a magical way of calling forth the deepest parts of my being. It’s as if I truly come alive. It’s…
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It was her heart that was the first to leave. She was only six yet her wise heart knew that this was not love, even while the mind did whatever it could to soothe and to make believe that it was.
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Our histories leave trails behind us Whether we remember, or not Clues, leaves of Lórien let fall By our younger selves In hopes We might come back someday To rescue the little child within In hopes We might remember To find healing In hopes That we might forgive The child within And finally remember Who…
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When the Securitate would enter our house, my sister and I would hide in the bathroom, the one where the tile and commode and even the porcelain tub was pink, and tell each other stories. There was the story of the gypsies who kidnapped fair-headed children like ourselves, cut off a hand or foot, then…
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Write, she says, you have to keep writing. To write is to go to war. Go to war with who I am and who I was and who I’m supposed to be. But who am I supposed to be? Am I supposed to be anyone or am I supposed to be me? In a resistance…
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You call her a dirty slut You whisper “cheap whore” as she walks by Words echo in the long hallway of a high school Words echo in the tender spirit of a 16 year old girl
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He’s always smiling, an easy grace on his lips. On his shoulders, rest that carries every shame.
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