Mail-Order Forgiveness

The envelope arrives with no return address.
He knew I wouldn't open it if it bore his name.

Inside, his ragged handwriting asks
for understanding.
Explains the narrowness of choices,
how the long road bent him
until temptation justified his fall.

Please don't hate me.

He writes about finding God.
About forgiveness.
About a clean slate.

But it's not the crime that still burns.
It's the aftermath.
The way my body still shakes
in memorized rooms
with no exits,
the half-life of a moment
that never finished happening.

I do not burn the letter.
I do not tear it up.
I place it back in its envelope
like a specimen slide.

I seal it shut,
put it in a drawer.
Then sit in the dark,
and feel nothing.

Forgiveness is not mine to counterfeit.

 

Sticks and Stones

Whore.
Rape Girl.
Slut.

Scrawled on a locker
in permanent ink.
Truth overwritten
by simpler stories,
rumors draped around my neck
like chains.
She wanted it.
She let him.

When you're thirteen,
words are everything.

But years pass,
ink fades
the way names do
when you stop answering.

Those words are nothing.
I know what happened.
I know what didn't.
And I was never
what they carved into me.

Sticks and stones, yes.
But those words
no longer get to tell me
who I am.

Free

When I was a child
the door would open like a mouth.
He would come in,
filled with his day's failures,
hands already curled
into the shape of my body.

No one teaches you
how to carry the weight
of a man who can't carry his own.
So I learned how to make myself small.
How to live underwater and not drown.

The day they took him away,
birds went on singing.
I sat in the grass
and felt nothing.
The sun pressed gently down
in place of the apology
he'll never give me.

And I breathed.

 

Before Me

Sometimes I talk to ghosts
I've never met.

No one wakes up one morning
and becomes that man.
So there must have been others.
Test runs.
A first time that taught him
how easy it was.

I think of them in passing,
like headlights on a dark road.
If I stay there too long
my stomach turns.
My hands shake.

What if one of them had spoken up?

People call me brave,
tell the story as if I'm the hero,
as if courage were the point.
As if I stood up
with a list in my hands,
counting all the future girls
I might save from him.

I didn't.

I spoke up because I was drowning,
and I finally grabbed the edge
of something solid.
Because my body was tired
of carrying his secret
like an iron shadow.

I wasn't thinking of justice.
I was thinking of air.
Of the next breath.
Of making it through the night.

If others were spared,
I'm grateful.
I hold that thought carefully,
like something fragile
that doesn't belong to me.

But the truth is simpler.
I didn't rise to save them.
I didn't rise for justice.
I was only trying
to save myself.

 

Approach

I tell myself it's safe.
This warmth.
This nearness.
Love.

My skin does not believe me.
I feel everything at once.
The drive to pull toward you
and the instinct to pull away.

My mind still scans for exits,
measures the distance to the door,
keeps one eye open
even as my body leans toward you.

When you stop just short of touching,
my skin burns with it.
With the almost.
With the question your hands ask
without asking.

I'm afraid of wanting this.
Afraid of how fast my body remembers
what my mind is slow to forget.
Afraid of how good it feels
to be touched
without being taken.

Still balanced between reach and recoil.
Still learning the shape of desire
without demand.

Still learning that touch
can arrive slowly,
and leave the door open
behind it.

 

Let Me Stay Asleep

This feels like a dream.
Not the frantic kind
that slips through your fingers,
but a soft, gentle one,
the kind that settles
into your world
and quietly rearranges the room.

It came without asking,
everything I once imagined
love might be.
It knows my corners.
It sits beside me
without trying to fix
the broken pieces.

Joy keeps finding me
in ordinary places.
A glance.
A smile held one second longer.
The soft certainty
of not being alone
inside myself.

What if I say it out loud
and the room dissolves?
What if naming this feeling
is the same as waking?

So I breathe carefully.
I whisper.
Everything is fragile
in a dream.

If this is sleep,
let me stay here
just a little longer.
Let me believe
that some dreams
are doorways.

And if I wake tomorrow,
let it be slowly,
with this feeling
still warm in my hands.

 

Good Girl

I open my mouth,
but the word falls
down my throat.

No.

Such a small word,
yet it feels
like rebellion.

It isn't easy,
unlearning a life.

Even now,
with the truth in my hands,
I hesitate,
weighing every word
like the wrong one might
cut me.

I know now
I don't have to bleed
to be worthy,
but still my voice
trembles at its own sound.

I am learning
to trust it anyway,
to know I can move forward,
speak plainly,
ask for what I want.

And still be a Good Girl.

 

If She Knew

He told her she was pretty
and she believed him,
as if that word were holy,
as if it came from a mouth
that knew truth.

She wore his words like silk.
He slipped past her defenses
with soft eyes, soft words,
his lips close to her ear.

No one warned her
that monsters whisper.

Time revealed
what she couldn't have known,
and it moves through me
like fire through a dry forest,
charring the brittle branches
of every lie he ever told.

Oh, if I could go back.
Not just to warn her,
but to stand beside her,
press into her small hand
the match she would need,
watch her strike it,
watch his whole false world
burn down around her.

But I can't go back.
I can only speak.
I can only drag his name
through my throat.
I can only say

He was a monster.

And I am still learning
how to live with that truth.

 

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.