Still Standing

After the ashes have settled, around the burning crosses, and the billows of gray fog have lifted, I will be there. Perhaps a bit torn, tear-stained tattered, rip-frayed shabby, bruised, but standing. You will find me in the open, where you will be able to see me clearly, in my state of fractured wholeness. You might...

Wildflower

I want to be a wildflower, growing in the shadows, of jagged mountains. Fragile, fleeting-beauty, simplicity in being, rebellious in the face monstrosity. It is a difficult deed, to open one’s petals, before ominous giants. Tiny and frail, the memory of calamity, ripe within its roots, submerged in rocky soil. It's a gradual awakening, eternal...

Abuse: My Story

I don’t understand why victims of domestic violence blame themselves, but we do.  Even now a year after leaving, I don’t have feelings of anger or hate for my ex.  The hardest emotion to deal with these days is my own shame over having stayed for 12 years, for having enabled him to manipulate me,...