Your tired rebuttal, “What about me?” has been rejected by the remaining sane member of the jury. And yet, like the freed prisoner, or bird, who finds themselves unequipped to navigate a world without the prescription of a cage, we found ourselves recreating the same conditions under which we’d been born. Maybe it’s because injustice…Read more Dear Panzon
4th Street
Neither one of us were expecting much, since it was a holiday weekend and everything was booked. We’d driven most of the way in total darkness, aside from the headlights of gridlocked traffic on the opposing side of the road, which felt like accusations. You didn’t see this coming. You didn’t plan ahead. I told…Read more 4th Street
What Happened
Several years ago I got to hear Dr. Bruce Perry tell the story of a little boy named Jesse. I stood next to a potted tree in a crowded conference room as adrenaline perfunctorily coursed through my veins. That was my routine baseline back then. It was normal for my heart to beat like a…Read more What Happened
Don’t Lose Your Head
Temperance I was sound asleep when your hands Clamped around the base of my neck Impressing you into repressed she Told you it was too hard But you never listened Muffled between the sheet, backseat and steeplechase You stuffed your own mouth with the dirty socks and duct tape of chronic criticism Lies Forced us…Read more Don’t Lose Your Head
Heart to Heart
Pardon the bleeding heart. Mercury’s in retrograde…again. But sincerely, the essence of all healing is finding our way back to Love. We can’t love anyone or anything, until we figure out how to love ourselves. Whether it was brutal, gruesome trauma, or the subtle erosion of moving from a secure and nourishing childhood into the…Read more Heart to Heart
The Hook
Wendy was one of those broken, naive, people pleasers who’d been abused into forgetting we’re all made of stardust and love. Naturally, she found herself trapped in isolation, attempting to wash the dirty laundry of lost boys who’d show up at her balcony demanding selfless mothering. Mistaking dependency for devotion, she’d let them in, one…Read more The Hook
Fawn
Yessed to death Permissive patience In the absence of ever having had a Who What Where When Does the truth finally Choke you woke To the reality of being Either doormats, mice or brutish men Who force their broken hunger On unconscious bodies Just because I sat there A perch Parrot Frozen pickerel Paralyzed scream…Read more Fawn
Where Do We Grow
The ocean was a frothy milkshake Of creatures, seaweed and waves Where do we grow from here? The impasse buckling the only bridge we’d known A cleared path between parked plastic and ascended sanctuary Double yoked and sensible surrender cracked you open Replacing sheer terror with determination And I ran To a shame-filled room where,…Read more Where Do We Grow
Wondering
Or, is being trauma-informed the essence of enlightened Love, which is what some of us call God? But first, a little context. Back in the late 90’s two white, male doctors conducted a study out of Kaiser-Permanete and essentially discovered an irrefutable link between childhood adversity and adult health outcomes. The study, Adverse Childhood Experiences,…Read more Wondering
Born in Providence 