Poetry is not my forte. However, while trying to heal and process my experiences, sometimes poem like strings of words are what comes out. They're not eloquent. They're not pretty. They are real. This spoken piece was written a couple years ago while on vacation in California. I got in the car with my cousin to drive to the airport and it was screaming in my head. I asked if she minded if I used my phone's voice recorder to take down what was trying to tear my brain apart. I

We all have masculine and feminine in us. All of us. Some of us are more polarized than others. Most of us are more polarized than not. Those of us that are polarized still have the opposite aspects in us even if they don't rule us. Look at the fictional characters of Ron Swanson from the television show Parks and Rec, and Molly Weasley from the Harry Potter series. Ron is as far on the male polarity as a person can get. He still has love, caring and nurturing ways when it co

"If you have been brutally broken, but still have the courage to be gentle with others then you deserve a love deeper than the ocean itself." Nikita Gill I spent at least a solid year alone on the shore before even touching my toe to the water. Waded in but kept close enough to the shore that my feet still touched the ground and I could escape at a moment's notice. Playing in the waves and learning their ebb and flow. My head going under only when I chose for it to do so. Wat

"You need to grow thicker skin." Oh, the amount of times I've heard that. It's just about the most insensitive, yet necessary, advice out there. I don't take issue with the message, at least not the way I've come to incorporate it in my life. It's vital to survival in this world. The delivery is usually done harshly and without validating what the other person is going through emotionally. Asking someone to deny or hide what they are experiencing can be harmful and demoralizi

I have struggled with disordered eating and body image issues for most of my life. At the beautiful age of thirty-eight I have once again found love for myself and my body. How did I go from believing I was unlovable, and needed extensive plastic surgery to find a partner, to being able to stand naked on the Salt Flats and then sit for a boudoir photo shoot? It wasn't easy and it took years of soul searching and hard work. After urgent surgery a few years ago, to remove my