Untitled - 2020 - Acrylic on vintage sheets

There's a ribbon of
blood between
you and
eternity.

Caprinae (2023)

I cannot confess my sins,
For I know not what they are.
The words spoken are foreign to me,
And now I doubt we ever served the same master.

Untitled - 2021 - Embroidery on velvet and satin

Teal:

"NOW -WE- KNOW

HELL -IS- EMPTY"

Green:

"You will be eaten from the inside out.
Too slow to notice until it's over."

"The promise of freedom is what baits the trap."

Red:

"God bless the blood from our tongue."

"I fantasized about being raped, because at least then it wouldn't be my sin."
(the word "fault" written in ink is faintly visible behind the embroidered word "sin")

Gold:

"Born into the flock and raised in their ways, I knew what I was doing using my voice to coax your tears in our makeshift sanctuary.
I held you ask you cried and I knew,
Pain was seen as victory.
Guild is gold.
I knew what I was doing."

Stagnant Waters (2018)

I find comfort in the knowledge that the water resting when I went in,
Is not the water that rests there now.
It has peacefully moved on and will never see me again.

When it comes back around,
And it will come back around,
The water will be new and purified from the anxious breaths of me and my lover.
And I, by the grace of God, will be long buried in the earth.
Shifting to dust, feeding new growth.
It knew me in my youth, tainted by my own follies and fears.
But we only know each other in passing and will never meet again.
I run to find new failures, and it moves on to pursue the slow cycle of rebirth.

With the tide, a new blanket comes to settle, if only for a moment.
It has never met me, and holds no judgement nor anger for me.
It too will pass through the mouth of the river,
Bringing word that healing will come in time.

When it moves, it will speak to the depths and trenches,
That it has seen the light, prophesying that they too will come to know it.
It will be seen again, saturating their dead souls.
But for now, there is slow crawling movement through the darkness,
Yet there is knowledge even through the blindness that we are not stagnant,
And we will be purified in time.

As the tide ebbs and flows, so the pain of my soul goes with it,
Bringing the hurt I left behind on their long journey,
To one day be purified and return,
Long after I have found healing.

Forest Floor - 2020 - Acrylic on shower curtain

I wonder what they thought
When they found you on the forest floor.
Bones gnawed and scattered.

Two years of rotting leaves became your bed,
But there is nothing else for comfort.

I always imagined they found you
After walking through a field of gold.
Tall grass hiding a dog from sight
As it carved the path ahead.

Did their stomach drop?
Did they think it was a cruel joke?

I like to imagine they cried.
The first person to mourn your discovery,
To know for certain that you
Were really gone.

They found you,
when two years of search parties and
Trained cadaver dogs couldn’t.

Only two miles from where your
Black VW bug had been found,
Sticky with blood, sharp with glass.

Three calls of a man walking down the highway.
Blood on his head,
Wearing only one shoe.
Three calls, and no one helped you.

I wonder what they thought
When they found you on the forest floor.
Did they know then
That the bones of a stranger
Weigh more on the soul
Than a living body ever could.

Untitled 2020 - Acrylic on baby blanket & table runner

I was proud acting
As my mother, but it
Wasnt my job and now
I cant fill my own
Shoes. So tell me how
To let go of a childhood
You felt you never had

I FORGIVE YOU

Psalms (2018)

Morning sun, you filled my heart with pleasure when I was held by another.
Strong hands grasping my body.
But now those hands of comfort have left me,
And so has the joy I derived from your warmth.

You are meant to be Lord, yet at times I do not honor you.
You gave me a brain to think and a heart to feel.
But I regret the choice of my mother,
Who conspired with you to bestow these gifts upon me.

I did not ask for them.
Unsolicited, these are gifts that have hurt me.
But the hurt comes from darkness, which you have sternly banished from the city.
Instead, I like a rat run into the dark,
Content with gorging my empty stomach on moldy crumbs and stale vomit.

I denied you until I was too starving and frail to scavenge in that wasteland anymore.
Only then, sick and alone, did I curl up to rest in your arms like a young child.
Only then, when I could not sustain myself did I give in to eat at your table.

I want to be able to accept your affections through the light of dawn,
And the gifts of full loaves and my own hands.
My own hands will bring pleasure and comfort.
My own hands will do the work it takes to heal.
With my own hands I will cling to you and cry beneath the morning sun.

Untitled - 2020 - Acrylic on vintage sheets

Lay me to
Rest wrapped in
Cloth, so I may be returned to the earth,
The dust of life.

Your Silence Isn't Expected - 2020 - Acrylic on sheet

Your sincerity is always accompanied by a flurry of apologies and explanations.
But not this time.
This time the “im sorry” is a moral obligation.

There’s 400 miles between us with the weight of my words still barreling down the highway,
Ready to crash into the back of Dad’s car.
I was 16 and terrified of driving.
The anxiety I felt having to tell you what happened was familiar.
The same fear of a seven year old girl terrified of her mother.
Trying to comfort a crying baby brother so her anger wouldn’t find us.

I thought I’d left that girl.
Tucked her into bed and kissed her goodnight.
Wrath has softened and the baby’s cries have changed to the sound of my own guilt.
And that girl is standing in the doorway,
Whispering to me “can I sleep in your bed? I had a bad dream.”

Yet her presence brings the nightmares with her.
And they creep into my stomach gnawing their way from the inside out,
Leaving me retching and gagging on emptiness.

Your silence isn’t expected,
But at least now I’m able to vomit.

Hold Fast (2023)

Despite the pain beyond your knowledge,
Be open, and be simple little children.

I know your bodies are heavy with soaring spirits,
And hearts too big for the vessels which hold them.
Outgrown before you first grew into yourself.

Still, your blood rushes with strength in the undertow,
Compensating for muscles the size of the moon.
You hold veins the length of the earth and back,
A maze of life that will one day leave you.

But hold fast, for there is more joy yet to come.

Untitled - 2020 - Acrylic on pillow cases

WHY

I DIDN'T ASK
TO BE BORN

NOT

All I Want is to Get Drunk and Masturbate in My Shower

All I want is to get drunk and masturbate in my shower.
At least then my body doesn't feel so foreign,
And the chemicals I crave fill the empty spaces in my brain.

I say I want to be loved,
But I think the reality is I already am.

What I lack is touch.
What I lack is the comfort of feeling what is familiar and warm.
What I lack is company in the moments
Where I finally allow my mind to wander where I shouldn't let it go.

Because it will stay there in a swarm of dark fog and suffocate in its own sorrow.

Because it feels good to be sad.
It feels good to stay there.

Because at least,
At the very least,
You feel something.

It's no longer a lack of joy,
Or the numbness of moving forward while looking down.

It's the desperate illusion of safety in sorrow.
Because we go to what we know.

And I know I want to get drunk and masturbate in my shower.