The Third Time, She Knew

I learned something terrible that night.
How a heart refuses to stop beating,
how a body clings to life even when the mind
has chosen death.

I stood there
holding the world together
with a towel and an iPhone,
thinking not of friendship or loss
but the cruelty of the road
she'd chosen.

They tell you
survival is a victory.
They do not tell you
how it brands the witness,
how the image keeps repeating itself
behind your eyes.

She lived.
She looked at me later
with borrowed time in her pocket,
and I thought,
surely this was enough.
Surely this was a promise
of never again.

The third time, she succeeded.
It was not her death that stunned me
but the realization that she knew.
She knew what it would do
to the ones left holding the scene,
to the ones who had already paid
with haunted dreams and trembling hands
from the first two tries.

I am told to forgive,
to call it illness,
to sand down my anger
until it fits politely in a sentence.

But some days
it stands up furious,
asking what kind of ending
requires rehearsal,
what kind of friend
demands witnesses twice
before closing the door.

I carry her absence.
I also carry this:
The truth that I was there,
and it still was not enough.

And I am allowed
to be angry
about that.

 

Not Quite Home Anymore

It smelled like crayons
and Sunday pancakes,
walls sometimes bright
with laughter and buzz
of ordinary days.

I learned heartache there
in the darkest nights.
Locked doors,
promises breaking
room by room.

I grew up carrying echoes,
patching the broken parts
with scraps of hope.

Now I find healing
in small places.
Counting cracks in the sidewalk
along Maple Street,
the old bench by the river,
a text from a friend: You okay?

I never thought
home would feel
like a place I don't belong.

Caught between worlds,
I keep walking,
carrying the pieces I left behind,
searching for the ones
that still fit.

 

Undo

You pencil a sketch
of who you might have been.
A gentler shape, maybe,
less wary, less wise.
You wonder if peace
was ever meant to come
without a cost.

If given the chance
to undo, unmake, unremember,
would you hesitate,
hand lingering over the switch?

Because even the scar
shines a little,
in a certain light.
Because sometimes surviving
is too much,
and still not enough.

 

No Applause

Their faces
are younger than my scars,
but carry the same weight.

Standing at the front,
paper in hand,
I start to read,
then stop.

I crumple the paper,
speak like one of them.

I do not tell them
it gets better.
I tell them
it gets different.

That breathing
can become a habit again.
That a body is stubborn
about what it remembers.

Some of them don't look at me.
Some of them look too hard
for answers I don't have.
All of them are still here,
and that's not nothing.

I leave space
between my words
let the echo carry them
before the next breath

When I finish,
there is no applause.

That's how I know
I said it right.

Helping Her Find the Words

Her eyes know more
than her mouth can say.

It wraps around her
like a second skin.
I recognize it.
I wore it once.

I offer pieces
of my own hurt,
just to show
that words can survive
what was done to us.

I tell her it wasn't your fault.
She doesn't believe me.
Not yet.

But she holds those syllables
like smooth stones in her palm,
feeling their shape,
their weight,
the way they don't cut.

And tomorrow,
maybe,
she will try her own.
Maybe they will be crooked,
misshapen.
The first words always are.

I will stay beside her,
just listening
for the moment
when her silence
softens into sound.

 

Hello 2026

You arrive in gentle light,
hints of sunrise brushing edges
of a story still unwritten.

I greet you with open hands,
willing the wind to fill them,
stretching toward mornings
that promise possibility.

I step forward carefully,
trusting the rhythm of days,
listening for the pulse
of dreams that have waited
too long to bloom.

Hello, 2026.
I meet you with hope
folded into steady breath,
and plant intentions
like seeds along the path
I'm finally ready to walk.

May your days hold clarity,
and your nights cradle rest.
May I travel around the sun
with courage in my steps,
dreams unfolding like light
across a new horizon,
ready to become
everything
I was always
meant to be.

 

Dear 2025

You began with cold rain,
clouds breaking in slow arcs,
to promise something new
emerging from the brightness.

I practiced holding peace,
cupped in patient palms,
gathered strength
from clear blue afternoons,
found roots in days
that tried to break me.

Goodbye, 2025.
I step beyond your threshold now,
carrying echoes
that shape the path I follow.

In your waning moments,
I smooth your crumpled edges,
and press you gently
between the pages
of the book
of who I'm becoming.

 

Survivor's Guilt

A broken mirror
replays moments,
each one asking
what I missed,
seeking solace
in sharp edges of blame.

Fate stepped in for me;
I tried to pay it forward.
Failure was never an option,
but inevitable.

I still carry her shadow,
her absence feels hollow.
Sometimes I wonder
if I'd stayed with her that night,
could my arms
have kept her here?

But the truth is a tide
that drags me forward,
and I hate it,
even as it keeps me alive.

--

For my dear friend Anna (March 4, 2004 – December 22, 2024)

 

Learning the Shape of Love

I grew up thinking love
was a hand that reached
only to take.

I learned to make myself small,
to give quickly what was wanted,
hold back my tears,
accept the emptiness as proof
I had done it right.

Then he came along
and asked for nothing.
Not endurance,
not obedience,
not submission.

He gave me space to choose,
to say No,
to give freely
what I want to give.

This freedom feels strange.
Like a hand held out, waiting,
not closing
until I take it.

Lessons

You learn early
that love wears
a quiet smile,
a gentle voice,
a hand that pretends
to keep you safe.

You learn that trust
is a doorway
people walk through
to take what they want.

You learn that pain
wears familiar clothes,
that betrayal
looks like affection,
that a body can confuse
warning with welcome.

Later, people ask
how you couldn't see it,
how you let it happen,
why you didn't run.
They speak as if the world were simple,
as if the heart of a child
does not cling to the ones it needs
to survive.

Manipulation is patient.
It rewrites the story
of what love means,
until harm feels normal
and safety feels unreachable.

You were not stupid.
You were a child
who trusted.

The failure
was never yours.

 

It Takes A Village

Not to raise a child,
but to keep one breathing
at a time she thought
she couldn't anymore.

Seventeen and slipping,
I walked toward endings
as if they were doors
left carelessly open.

But two complete strangers,
at two different hours
of the same unraveling life,
a mother, a minister,
a support group leader,
a counselor, a teacher,
two grandparents,
and one remarkable friend —
they all held space
for the parts of me
I believed unlovable.

It took a village
to keep me here,
to keep me whole enough
to keep trying.

A village of hands,
voices, strangers,
and love I didn't yet
know how to accept.

But I'm still here
because they were.

 

Crossroads

Some days I feel the pull
of the life I planned.
The long, steady climb
up the ladder of knowledge,
the careful assembly
of logic and research
into the bridge I thought
would carry me forward.

Other days, a softer voice
calls to me, asking me
to sit with someone's hurt,
to offer warmth instead of data,
presence instead of proof.
It beckons with open hands,
quiet and human.

I stand between them,
one foot on the map I drew
years before I knew myself,
one foot on the shifting ground
of who I'm learning I am.

Still not knowing
which one
I'm meant to be.

 

Gentle Soul

She could have turned to stone.
No one would have blamed her.
She's seen what breaks a body,
what hollows out a soul.

But somehow
she kept a softness,
a light that never went out.

Her laughter still rings true,
her hands still reach.

It's not that she forgot –
you can see the knowing in her eyes –
but she wears it like weather,
something she's learned to live through.

I don't know how she does it,
how she still believes in kindness
after everything.
But when she smiles,
I feel a small, impossible hope
that gentleness
can survive
anything.

--

For my dear friend K, who has been through it all and still always finds a way to be there for me.

 

Ruin

In the barren woods,
morning light gathers
in a clearing touched by fire,
thin as winter sun
through charred branches.

The air smells of ash and rot.
Moss climbs what’s left
of a fallen tree,
quietly covering
what can't be restored.

Sometimes I stop there,
run my hand through the moss
covering its blackened bark,
see my face reflected in the water
pooled inside that hollow trunk,
and wonder how life keeps growing
around all this ruin.

 

Defiance (a tribute to Virginia Giuffre)

She walked with quiet resignation
through hallowed halls, where whispered deals
and tailored suits cloaked hungry eyes,
a place where innocence was sold
in cold transactions.

She carried truth
like a trembling flame,
raising it to the world
to shine a light
on its darkest places.

They tried to bury her under fear,
under silence, under shame.
They thought they'd locked her down
with money, with threats, with indifference.
But she rose again, voice ragged,
yet bright enough to shatter glass walls.

She bore scars no child ever earned,
cradled them in the night,
shielded them from sight,
each scar a star,
a point of truth
in a sky of lies.

And when grief
became too heavy
for even her courage to carry,
she stepped away from the noise,
into a quiet place she hoped
might bring peace.

I curse the hands that held her down.
I curse the shadows that swallowed her.
I curse the system that let monsters roam free.

But I praise her name.
I praise the girl who survived,
the woman who spoke truth.
I praise the light she gave to others
before hers flickered out.

May peace find her now.
May she rest beyond all echoes of pain.
And may the world she tried to warn
awaken enough to build a system
that could have saved her.

--

Virginia Giuffre's autobiography, Nobody's Girl, is a heartbreaking account of her life and the abuse she suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and so many others in his circle, and the system that let her down again and again. Before taking her own life in April 2025, she left explicit instructions for her memoir to be published posthumously. I read it through tears, and felt some of what she felt. If you have the stomach for it, read it. As heartbreaking as her story is, there are so many others like her, buried by a system designed to protect the people in power, a system so desperately in need of change.

I Didn't Scream

I was young enough
to believe silence
could save me.

That if I didn't move,
didn't cry out,
the world would stay whole.

So I let it happen,
again and again,
as if stillness were armor,
as if I could hold
the breaking inside.

No one tells a child
that a body remembers
everything.

A lifetime later,
I'm still trying
to forgive that small girl
who mistook her fear
for strength,
and silence
for survival.

 

The Man at the Diner

It's late,
and the world disappears
beyond the rain-streaked windows.

Across the counter,
a man with leather hands
pours another cup.
Doesn't ask if I'm okay,
just slides the blue mug closer.
Steam swirls upward between us,
folding into air and vanishing.

He talks about the weather,
the road home,
how apple pie tastes better
after midnight.

I nod and fake a smile,
grateful for ordinary words,
and the way he doesn't look too closely
at what's behind my eyes.

Sometimes the smallest thing
can change a life.
Like the man at the diner
who never knew
he saved a broken girl from drowning
one cold November night.

 

Proof of Life

Tonight,
I sat in the dark
and cried.

No reason.
The dam just broke.

Sometimes it's strange comfort,
this breaking.
To know I can shatter
and still bleed.

Let the tears come.
Let them remind me
I am not stone.
That I am still here,
still capable
of ruin.

And still capable
of love.

 

Theft

Deception can rot a thing
faster than air or time.
Love, when it betrays,
can steal God from your hands.

"Some wounds," the counselor said,
"just take longer to heal."

And I understood what she meant
as I touched the child's face
dissolving into the fogged mirror.

 

When November Wind Turns Cold

It starts with the air.
That first shiver of wind
threading through trees.
Leaves loosen their grip
in tired surrender,
fluttering to the ground
like broken promises.

I watch them gather
along the fence line
as the sky grows dark early.
I pull sweaters from drawers
and feel that familiar ache.

Mom asks if I'm coming
home for Christmas this year.
I say maybe,
like I always do.
She doesn't ask why.

The wind picks up.
Somewhere, a door slams hard.
My body flinches
before my mind can stop it,
and for a heartbeat,
I see him standing
in the doorway again.

And I pretend
not to hear the echo.
That dissonant chord
beneath November wind,
the sound of something breaking
and never being the same.

 

Revenant

He had many faces—
each grinning with borrowed power,
each certain the dark
would keep his secrets.

But I am the dark now.
And I keep nothing.

He mistook my silence
for submission—
forgot what grows
in buried soil,
how roots remember
every bootprint that crushed them.

Now I rise without prayer, without apology.
Baptized in the iron taste of my own blood,
I walk back into his world
like salt finding every open wound.

Not my cries for mercy this time. His.
Restoring balance
with the slow, deliberate sound
of justice breathing through gritted teeth.

Let them call it vengeance.
Let them call it sin.

I call it reckoning.

And when he speaks my name,
let it sound like thunder
dragging chains through Hell.

 

Beneath the Smile

I dress myself
in quiet lies,
a smile practiced
until it almost fits,
eyes that shine
just enough
to hide what's underneath.

They see grace,
but not the ghosts
pounding on doors
I've nailed shut.
Or the way even
a gentle hand
can pull the air
from my lungs.

They don't know
how hard it is
to make it look easy—
to stand tall,
and look strong
while I'm falling
apart.

 

Rearranging

You wake to find
the world rewritten—
chairs where the table was,
the smell of oranges
turning into rain.

Someone sings in the next room,
but it's your own voice,
older, and without apology.

You walk through a field
where your grandfather stands,
pockets full of unfinished stories.
He tells them again the way he did
the day he left, though no one
is listening now.

You think you've forgiven
the version of yourself
that didn't scream,
but forgiveness
is made of time
and distance.

The past stays folded
in the hem of your shadow,
creases deepening
each time you look away.

Then you stand there,
building small altars
to what you've lost,
lighting candles
with whatever
you can find
that still burns.

 

Parallel Lines

Somewhere,
another version of me
leans forward,
falls through the night
like a broken star.

The river swallows her,
and the world adjusts;
a quiet recalculation
for the absence
where she once stood.

Here,
I breathe the air
she never tasted.
I touch doorknobs,
coffee, sunlight,
his beautiful face—
each small thing
that never reached her hands.

And I wonder
if she drifts there still,
a ghost in an empty room.
Or if she is simply
frozen
in a world
where I no longer exist.

Two lines
never crossing,
but close enough
to hear the echo
of the other.

 

That Thing That Happened

I called it That Thing.
That Thing  that happened.

Because my mouth was a locked room,
and naming it was a door
I wasn’t ready to open.

The Terrible Thing.

I stacked other words around it,
like sandbags against a rising river—
hurt, secrets, things he made me do.

I was a child.
I thought keeping quiet meant it was my fault.
I thought not screaming  meant I let it happen.
I thought surviving meant I had chosen.
I was a child.

It took me years—I was seventeen, I think—
before I could say it.
I wrote the words on a scrap of paper,
each letter a tremor finding its shape,
until it stood there, stark and unblinking:

He raped me.

The ceiling did not fall.
The lights did not flicker.
The truth stood up
when I called it what it was.

I'm all grown up now,
and that word is part of my story.
But it's not my name.
I carry it with me, yes—
but I walk on.

That Thing  was not my fault.
I can say it out loud now,
and in saying it,
I keep what he couldn't take.