Greetings,

     By now you have figured out that I write poetry, the quality of which is determined by you, the reader.  How did I start, and why do I continue to do so?  I have no choice.  Writing is as reflexive an action with me as breathing.  It started many, many years ago, when I was but 12, alone, a clunky, shy kid who had thoughts and feelings, but no willing ear in which to pour them.  A pen and pad of paper soon became best friends, and while I have walked away, as we will all do with our closest friends, from time to time, I have always gone back to the welcoming arms of this medium to find comfort and understanding of myself that does not come from any other source.  I have grown into  a less clumky woman, and have found a place in the world where people let me into their secret lives and dreams.  I am learning every day the power of true love on wounded lives, and now my writing is a a gift that I offer most humbly to those who might benefit from the words, and the emotion behind them.

    Two of my poems, History Was To Blame, and ManChild, are based on the very courageous sharing by a very dear friend who lived through the full circle of the horrible event known as child molestation.  My own sister was violated by our father.  It was the only time I benefitted in any way to be the ugly brown haired lump of a child, as it kept his hands off of me.  The fact that I was not worth molesting did have the impact of making me feel even less worthy of any attention than I already did.  It is hard to feel lower than shit on an ant's shoe, but my father managed quite handily to make me feel thus.  It took me many years to finally realize that I could be loved, and deserved to be.  It took a rape, a child born and adopted out to a loving family because he would never find love in me, and years of feeling like damaged goods before I tired of it.  A near brush with my own mortality, in the form of heart failure, coupled with diabetes and severe anemia, made me stop and think about what I was here for, and if there was a chance I might ever fulfill this purpose.  I seriously wondered if  I  might not be just some cosmic scapegoat, a being created just for some wrathful anf hateful higher power to torment.  I decided that if that was how I saw the Divine, amybe I needed to look at other views of the Universal Mind.  Finding others who had the same questions and concerns I had led me to recognize that I was not, nor  would I ever be able to call myself a Christian.  I simply refuse to bow to an evil old man who sends his son to do his dirty work while he picks and choses on a whim what he will and will not do for his followers.  Thank you, but I have come out wit hthe short end of that attiude too many times, and would rather face Hell than bow to another being who does not love and support me as I am.  I am much the same way in my relationship to people now, as well.  I learned over the years of being on the outside, looking in, that there is much more breathing room on the outside, and have developed a dislike of any kind of crowd situation.  It is not a phobia, not a fear.  I simply do not like being jostled, pushed, and restricted by others in my path.   Fortunately, I am also polite about this. LOL.  I keep my social life intimate and selective, and gravitate toward interesting people, survivors, and strong souls who have lived hard and learned well from it.