i want to open the mailbox

a white metallic prison

expecting what i always expect

bills, notes, the occasional flimsy magazine-

but instead discover flowers

clusters of bouquets,

of roses and daffodils and violets

petals raining on the sidewalk

i want to take one glance

and know exactly

who they're from

if i had a garden

i wouldn't give you the flowers

i'd give you the seeds

so you could have a garden too

Song of Choice: Digital Disguise by Sea of Tranquility

The average American spends more than five hours on their phone every day, checking it approximately fifty-eight different times. This song reminds me of how we can allow the beauty of technology and the information it brings us to take away from living life. Instead of living in the moment, we spend the moment checking social media for how our lives compare with others. When I listen to this song, I remember to be authentic, open, and present.

Truth hurts even if it didn’t happen to you. Warning this is a very a bad truth. and very graphic. but true.

It is true.

You cannot handle the truth. but

Truth is better, stranger, more interesting, more powerful, than fiction.

You don’t have to remember what you said to whom, the truth is the easiest to tell.

It is what it is.

There is no making up a story.

Yet you cover your ears, bury your heads in the sand, look down, pretend you didn’t see, didn’t read, pretend you don’t already know the hard truth because you know you are apart of the problem.

You know about abuse and you are hiding it.

It’s true more people hide abuse than shine the light on it.

Truth comes at a high price.

They hit harder to knock you down.

They don’t care what you have gone through, NO ONE DARE speaks TRUTH!

I’ve got a million TRUE stories that will knock your socks off.

How?

I was born in HELL... earth!

My aunt Mary told me at the age of ten, how the man who calls himself dad didn’t want me.

My birth mother’s name is also Mary and she and my aunt were best friends.

My aunt told me this story because I was crying, telling her what “daddy dearest” had last done.

I had aked him if I could leave with my step-mom Judy, she was leaving again.

He beat her every few months.

This time I wanted to leave too.

as soon as I said the words, meekly and scared to death, “can I live with Judy” he didn’t even hesitate...

He grabbed me by my ponytail first dragging me all around the house screaming. “YOU BELONG TO ME” “YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE ME” then we get to the hall and he picks me up off the ground and says looking me in the eyes holding me by my ponytail still my feet dangling not touching the ground. and says in the most low-pitched evil growl voice “DO YOU HEAR ME”? AND he then begins slamming my body against the hall walls back and forth like I was a rag doll!!!

He is NOT a large man... He was 5′8″ 135 pounds on his better days!!! He was a drug abuser!!!

He flung me back and forth against the wall like I was a rag doll in his hand.

This is what I was crying to my aunt Mary about.

She tries to comfort me with this story. This is what she said...

″Your dad never wanted you!

When your mom, told your dad she was pregnant with you, he beat her until she was unconscious and did horrible things next. I was hiding in the other room, your dad didn’t know I was there and I have never told him so. I am scared of your dad. Everyone is scared of your dad.” she continues her words saying “after he knocked her out he took a wooden broom and crammed the handle in her vigina over and over trying to kill you. Then he kicked her in the stomach over and over to make sure you were dead!!!”

Yes! these are the words she said... Would you ever lie telling a child these words? She was the few in the family who was nice, that is why I went to her!!! We had the same birthday, we had a special connection, she would never tell me such a thing if it were a lie!!!

I asked her how that was supposed to make me feel better.

She said ”because you asked, why did you mom leave you with that monster, I am telling you why”

“Then when you were born you were so adorable, so cute and everywhere your dad goes with you he gets a lot of attention. So he warned your mother and I heard him. If she ever left and took you he would hunt her down and kill her, and take you back.”

My “mother” took my newborn sister and left me at the age of 2.

Daddy Dearest told me my whole life that she wasn’t my mother or sister.

NOW I understand. (More about that another time)

I told my aunt, that did NOT make me feel better!

I now I Hated my “mom” she knew he was that evil and left me anyway?!?

Disgusting!!!

I met my sister whom my “mother” took in 1997, she looks nothing like me. My daughters were in her wedding, so I know she thinks about me. WE are all in her wedding pictures. lol today we do not talk. The last day I spoke to Alicia was on 911, she was abused by our “mom” really BAD and holy fuck she went through a lot herself!!!

She was abused in every way, like myself, including sexual abuse as well!!!

She was so scared of that connection she told me she couldn’t talk to me anymore. She was scared “they” would find her if she talked to me!!!

Athena

The world always seems to be ending,

And yet, it never does truly

End. One day there's burden,

The next, more burden.

But always it

Will spin.

Always

Always

Will spin.

But always it

The next, more burden,

End. One day there's burden,

And yet, it never does truly

The world always seems to be ending