Die dolly die

Pulled this way and that

Swung to the ceiling

Land with a splat

Splinters and webs

Crease around large eyes

Die dolly die

Plot her demise

The doll, a perfect victim

Stoic and true

Pop off her finger

Take away her shoe

Leave her in sorrow

Alarm and dismay

No one is coming

Until next time to play

No calls heard

No tears were shed

Just a dumb little play thing

And it's finally dead

You are important

From the day you were born

And every day to come

The first beat of your heart

The first air in your lungs

There is love within your skin

Carved out from long, long ago

No matter what happens

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

You were born of love

You are loved

If you are in doubt, just reach out

A hand is always waiting to pull up

There is always someone

Ready and willing to share the load

But be discerning

Be wise and be kind

Don't let your feet drag

Don't let your spirit unwind

You are enough

You are capable of it

Whatever IT is

And I am proud of you

You make mistakes, we all do

Find a way to repair

Know when to walk away

But lead with the love within you

Return what you can

Give what you wish you received

Because they are important too

When you feel devalued

Value you

Be what you need

But do not fear kindness given

Your worth is inherent

You deserve what everyone else does

From birth and beyond

There are places in our lives that we do not wish to touch. We avoid the weighted discomfort of our self repression because to confront such a thing is to admit our shortcomings. Being uninspired and bored often coincides with procrastinating. When we put off tasks that are tedious but necessary, it does not help! It compiles our problems and leads to our stress. Then we become itchy and short sighted. Have you put off dusting? Well, that simply will not do! I will do that and THEN, after I have finished, I will wrestle the elephant in the room.

Perhaps we are stuck feeling worthless, unimpressive, or pitiful. Perhaps we cannot pool from the well within our souls because we are empty. Tapped out. Dried up. Painfully depleted. Droughts are a terrible thing. Any friction and it will all go up in flames.

You can set ablaze and ruminate on the past. Visit betrayals, departed loves, or muse on opportunities not ceased. There is potential, but what good can it do? You can fixated on the future. The unfinished and unpredictable future.

It's best when I am uninspired to plant myself down. Bore my flesh into the ground, taste the stale air, hear the light buzzing, and close my eyes into a black abyss. Be present and find the missing piece I am in desperate need of in order to be inspired. Confront the nagging thread that is sticking up from its stitch. What has your mind consumed that you can hardly focus enough to find something in this magnificent life to he inspired by? What are you avoiding within yourself?

Feed your body something nourishing. Rest! Exercise your body as well as your mind. Connect with someone, especially if you haven't had contact in some while. Balance your life and you will find balance in your mind. Only when you are at your best will you be inspired. Life does not come to those who are drying out. It comes to those who seek to quench their thirst! And only through a life WORTH living can you pull from a deep well.

It took burning your bridge to save my sanity.

It took losing my kindness and becoming your enemy.

To shake off the blindness and seeing your lost humanity.

I've been saved from what you made:

A false reality that you preserve and push so desperately.

Belittled and battered, I never mattered.

Unless you were flattered my existence was splattered.

My sparks dimmed your light so you had to ignite.

Inspiring fights between me and your family.

Walking on eggshells to avoid calamity.

You think that you're precious and I am just some feckless

Under zealous interloper in your way,

But you are so jealous because I'm not like you in any way.

I was quiet and patient so you were mistaken.

Saw kindness as weakness and now you are speechless!

I'll only keep the peace if the peace is shared equally.

I turned around from coming off oh so meekly.

You cry and rage and stomp and feign.

How you fear of my reign, I know it drives you insane.

You cannot dominate me so you try to instigate me.

Throw mud on my name, you try to humiliate me.

I found my voice and I command my choice.

I won't let you erase me

Even when you send your demons to chase me.

I can't be mistaken, until your entitlement is forsaken

And penance is taken, I won't be shaken.

Life is a blessing, but you are a curse.

Things couldn't get better until I made them worse.

I loved and I hate you, I cannot anticipate you,

You have so much shame and you place so much blame.

Putting an end to our connection,

Pouring in to introspection,

I've learned my lesson!

My light is unleashed, you fed me gasoline.

You've further pushed and added in kerosene.

Neither of us can pretend to be clean.

I'm out of your spell and stomping on eggshells.

I grew up cold and blamed it on the shadow of my older sisters. Not because I am the youngest or smallest in the family, but because I felt a sense of not belonging. I wondered if I were an alien creature being studied on a planet of people who only resembled me in appearance, but the similarities ended there. My mother seemed to favor my sisters, with their baby pictures hung large on the wall of her bedroom where mine was forgotten on some far forgotten to-do list. I remember such feral anxiety at the thought of losing my mother still. I grew older and bitter, but still held that deep seeded need for security, attention, and affection. Even if I did not get exactly what I craved, I knew I should never wander far from my mother. She may not be the warm embrace of a homemade chocolate chip cookie, but she will always tide me over. I met a man and took a leap of faith on him and a thing called love, which helped me draw boundaries and take a step away from my family of origin. There was so much to learn about life and my sense of self. I value different things and support different politics. And then the day came that I dreamed of my entire life. 8.5 pounds of nothin' brought my life to a screeching halt. I have birth to human perfection. His hair was thick and dark and his skin a rich olive red. "Whose baby is this?" I wondered. I expected a pale bald or blonde baby that me resembled myself. I couldn't have been more prepared for motherhood and yet I was not prepared at all. The love, the ecstacy of the new baby smell, and the sheer terror at realizing I am responsible for this life and its every need. My child IS my love. I need to feed him when he cues, but first to learn his cues constantly varying. The long nights, the cry-inducing panic, and the distrust of my mother-in-law that made me reject assistance. Being a mother is horrific in the greatest way. It is living with the best peace of your soul split from your human form. Suddenly, I get it. I don't love it, but I get it. My mom was all but abandoned by my father for most of my childhood. She wasn't purposefully neglectful, she was spread thin. My older sisters were provided opportunities that I was not because there were not enough resources to go around. Instead of evenly distributing what my mom could, she tried to do it all, and all for my sisters prevented any for me. It wasn't intentional, and I never complained. I was so resigned to being hated and unwanted that I never dared to ask why I was being left out, why I was not loveable, why I didn't matter. I didn't know I could speak my truth until I met my husband, who said things out loud that shouldn't have been spoken at all. I grew into myself more away from my mother. I lost some love only to find it in my own son. My relationship with mom isn't as close as my sisters' seems to be, but my appreciation for all that she could spare has been tremendous. Pieces of me that shattered under the pressure of being less than have found their way to building something new. I am reborn after having given birth. My child will know he is wanted and loved in the ways I still yearn to feel. I will take charge of my relationships and my life as a whole. I am a mother now, and mothers have to build their children's world from the bottom up while the weight of the world presses harder and harder. Being a mom is thankless and all-consuming, but it is the closest thing to being a God there is. Creating life is the easy part, keeping the child alive is the never- ending challenge. We're all doing the best we can, so ask your mother the hard questions, love others the way you yearn to be loved, and thank your mom for keeping you alive!

The sexiest thing a man can be is attentive. Nothing causes a drought quite like a man with eyes glossing over in the middle of your sentence. Feeling seen and heard leads to the desire to be touched and tasted. Foreplay should always begin fully clothed, feet apart, hours in advance. Lock your eyes into mine, smile when I share my triumphs, worry when I share my doubts. Having presence in my existence allows me the safety to shed off the days armor and allow myself the vulnerability I need to let myself go. Follow the cues of my body I don't even know I am sharing. Come closer, embrace me, kiss me gently, caress my shoulders. Allow me to melt into your arms with dribbling clumsiness. Build up the tension of desire while disarming in me the tension of my responsibilities. Do this delicate dance with me repeatedly until you are my salvation. I want my mouth to start watering as soon as I see you, but I cannot get there alone. All human bonds must be grown, and like anything you grow, I need to be nourished and given my time in the sunlight. Allow me to bloom for you and bask in the heady scent of lust I feel only for you.

As soon as the bubble of dread bursts, and the bad news is shared, it sinks into my chest like a parasite with a ring of fangs for teeth. Whatever the tragedy, it belongs to anyone but me. And yet it consumes me, feeds from my energy as if the perpetrator grows stronger from affecting the world with their depravity. I beg myself to look away, shield my mind from the despair of a stranger. Something sinister then convinces me that to shut it out is to invalidate their pain. Somehow knowing and feeling their anguish may somehow relieve them from it for only a moment. Who would I be to deny the damned from a moment of peace? But of course they continue to suffer, and I continue to flood my own brain with images of what had occurred as if I were a first- hand witness. I wonder, I fear, I endure thoughts like a runaway train headed for my inner child tied to the tracks. Vulnerable and pure, the shock of a bad event alive elsewhere in the universe shatters me and violates my inner world. I ruminate on the facts, chewing and considering until I feel so worthless that I cannot help. I feel so weak and pathetic that it brings me panic to consider my feelings when it isn't about me. It has nothing to do with me. I try to change the topic of my inner monologue, to will control over my conscious existence. My subconscious always drawing me back into the abyss. The conflicting nature of blissful ignorance and being aware of the world. I don't wish to set my head in the sand, but I wish my thoughts would break from misery and focus on the hope.

I have given it to you

All that I can

To show you the way

Hand in my hand

I twisted myself

Around the start of you

It broke, I didn't break

You wholed me like glue

My strength and my weakness

You are my heart

The world I will give you

Even when we're apart

Watching you thrive

Wheels turning, eyes clear

It's all I could hope

The absence would be fear

When you grow old

I will grow older, too

You'll be what I hope for

Nothing else for me to do

Strength, wisdom, poise

Treasure in your chest

All the best things

I know you possess

From the day that I met you

You fit me like a glove

I am proud to have birthed you

You are my love

The hue of calm

Peace within

A deliberate balm

A dancing whim

A cold hard truth

Slithering eel

Cold clamy smooth

Fascinating feel

Rough as frozen stone

And soft as mist twilight

Calm as the sweetest tone

Dancing into midnight

A best friend forever

Deep summer pool

Thinking something

Feeling deeply cool

A hug after a cry

A whisper and laugh

The favorite sweater you buy

Then have to bring back

Blue is the way of being

Fresh, loving, and breezy

There so more to it than seeing

Not what makes you uneasy

Fear is an un-motivator

An unkind instigator

Of the moon

A dark circumvented crator

Anxiety is a burden

Sharp and unknown

It prevents you from the way

You should have grown

No FOMO within

Avoidant to all harm

Where some seek adventure

Others see harm

Believe in the worst

Watch it come true

Shield yourself from it

Shudder and bubble burst

Watch skin break out in hives

Hyperventilating - no breath

Stay away

Don't live your lives