“my children are bridges & compounds

soups & salves

poems and poems and poems”

“By nurturing the garden, I will become the garden”

“We are part of the chain that passes our ancestral knowledge, joy, and strength from one generation to the next. We do not only inherit trauma. We inherit love, laughter, ceremony, and wisdom.”

“Channeling the strength and purpose of my ancestors, I picked up the silver thread and sewed into the canvas, pulling the pieces of my painting and of myself together. While my pieces remain scattered, they are not broken. Across space and time, my history, my present, and my future are joined. My pain transformed into something beautiful, regenerative.”

“some people do not deserve / to have their tears ripple / upon the ocean I will become, / when they refused to pour / into the wells I left behind.”

“[…} when life shut my eyes, / silenced my voice and / laid me down, / i chose to dream.”

“And you know / you’ll never learn / how to go on living. / And worst of all, / you know that, / —in fact— / you will.”

“From beneath his fragments / she emerged. / Stood. / Leapt in small, light bursts, / avoiding the slick black fluids, / and wrapped herself / in her nakedness.”

“my sleep is gone / or i dream on / in my dreams / as if life’s / a dream”

“soul flutters like sparrow / as I swell to sun / and swallow honey.”

“Every step forward / is a thank you / to the girl I was, / the girl I survived, / the girl I outgrew / so the woman could enter.”