My friend puking out her Christmas dinner like a little girl trying to scrub off that uncle’s touch who tells her she is his favorite kid.
For her dad fat shames her every day.


My friend’s parents sending her to therapy because they don’t get how she can like a boy as well as a girl. Or rather don’t try to, because calling it phase is so much easier than explaining to the neighbors how that is who their daughter is. They are oblivious to what it is like to live in a home where you are treated like a victim of your existence.


My friend needs help, a little attention and someone to talk to.
His family is ashamed, how they could have done better for him, how they’re responsible for the things inside his head and I still don’t know what depression does to him, his family doesn’t like to talk about it.
They’d rather consider him possessed because anything is better than people knowing that he needs therapy and love and care. “Their son can’t be suffering from mental illness, they’re a happy family.”


My friend tells me she’s turning into her mother, and her mother let me tell you, she’s fabulous and fierce for she has been through things harsher than a lover who never says,'I love you’ but wants you to be their ***** little secret and you love them a little too much to deny. My friend, she had an anxiety attack last night for she can’t go out with her guy friends, neither talk to a classmate for too long because her boyfriend might start ****-shaming her. I disapprove and tell her she is not turning into her mother but when I sit in their living room, and aunty brings me snacks while talking to me about life within these faint green walls of the house and what did I eat for breakfast. I ask her to go out sometimes because there are so many things out there that she’d be experiencing and creating, friendship, weather, languages, people, art, emotions. And smell some sunlight in the lush greens fields. She says she’s not allowed to, like a kid calling its mother, "Ma". Her husband loves his ***. And her helplessly hazardous heart, too drained to take ‘harlot’ for a word from an alcohol-soaked throat.
The same walls that once adored their wedding photographs now question their love.


My friend’s girlfriend telling him she loves him but they can’t be together because she’s doesn’t want to be seen with him in the streets. But she seeks his warmth in the winter and leaves right before spring. He loses a little bit of himself every time she does that. He blames himself for what love does to him.


The woman who wears a heavy heart to the bed, finds it difficult to put herself to sleep, holds her dog for a little too long. Whose husband refuses to try therapy.
For I can't margin in metaphors, the agony within the wives who haven't been touched for years.
And the woman who feels a little less human after every night her husband forces himself on her. Because she's, his wife. His. Possession not prized but objectified.
The wife whose husband refuses to wear a ******, she gulps down pain every morning with the pills.
Families of these women, who were taught to think that is how the society functions and who are unwilling to unlearn.      


My friend’s brother asking her to stop wearing that short skirt around guests. There's a hole in her heart every time she remembers the traces his hands left on that infertile body of the kid that looked just like her. He pretends like it never happened.

Take a page from my book.
Don't live to please those who would write you off
For choosing your own narrative.
Why let others write our stories.
Sitting idly by, as they use up the pages.

They forced the pen from your hand.
Take it back.
You know the words better than anyone.
But don't cover up their mistakes.
Tear-filled chronicles, a testament to growth.

When did you last write your own chapter.
You were excited to sign your name, you're the author.
Take up the sheets of paper.
Fill in the blanks.
Leave your mark.

When you read cover to cover,
Were you dynamic?
Did you go off script?
Underlined lessons?
Highlighted cautions?

When you've reached the resolution,
Will you be happy with your account?
Or do you have more to write.
If you have another story to share,
Take a page from my book.

Skulls have tales,
a human with an adventure to tell,
their lives imprinted in their bones, as they made their footprint on the earth,
each gene forms a twisted novel of health,
a spoken word a new intention into the universe,
With every physical touch there is traces of dust that formulate a pattern left behind,
it is magical enough, that continues to carry the story on as we would a prideful torch,
but we don’t even realise.

That’s why skulls have tales,
they have the tales the human misses,
they catalogue the who, what, why and when,
They are protectors as we function and move through our own story,
They are the canvas that holds our creation and our identity in physical form.
A crystal skull sealed in wax, could be viewed, loved and be an endless tale forever,
Magical moments sealed for a continuous life journey.

We each have our own separate tale
Not knowing what our path would entail
We’re scatters of stars on a celestial night
A laughing darkness with beads of light

We’re all a portion of the sky
A cycle to be born then to die
No wonder we look up above and yearn
For part of us wishes to return

Each star has its own beginning
Cascade of matter, bright and spinning
And then a story that lasts until its end
And through life they meander and wend

So all of us have a separate page
That spreads as we grow and we age
And we sparkle in our lifetime quarries
For we’re all made of stardust and stories

— OrcasTogether

my eyes are laughing strolling arm in arm
cracking the pavement brimming of vibrations
stories of contentment, despondency
a feeling of being summoned urgently by an invite
gracious and acute
in the company of gods and goddesses
on a patch of green grass
i admit to being without admonition exceedingly happy

Colours mean less to me than
The racing winds of autumn.

But to feel nothing
While dried leaves cascade
From trees that have more stories
Than me or any building
And crunch
Under my worn leather boots
While rich, muddled scent of earth
Pours into my being- filling me
Up with feeling that wraps
Around the heart- tingling
Chest and head
And hair tendrils

But to feel nothing...

Is to find that the
Winds of autumn are
Starting to fade
But even if for a moment I felt them
Even for a moment...
Is all I need to keep searching for them again.

we take this narrow
fragile flight into the light
ghosts even before we die
haunting the world
with fleeting moments
as we pass by
leaving memories and shadows
of our former selves
free in our limited way
to follow destiny

too many stories ending
shadows left on hearts
who grieve a selfish loss
pretending they can cope
knowing they are
a little more alone today
glimpsing the last page
epilogue epitaph preordained
we capture each new moment
determined to be unafraid

Superheroes hiding their tortured inner lives behind primary colored-masks and hilarious one-liner comebacks.
Normal girls who were actually princesses, but didn’t act like other girls (or other princesses). Space wizards with stupid haircuts.

No one understood them, but I did.

I knew all their tragic backstories,
their hearts’ deepest desires,
the ways that they were, like, rejected by society and stuff.  
I gushed over their bonds of friendship that could never be broken, not by intergalactic politics, ancient feuds between magical species, or the infinite varieties of mind control.
I totally supported them when no one else could.

I reread the most heart-wrenching pages over and over again,
my fingers bubbling the plastic dust jackets and my toes clenching in my mismatched socks.
I couldn’t just wade in these worlds—I baptized myself into them, staying under the shallow water for hours without taking a breath.
I could never quite feel enough.  I squished my eyelids shut, trying to conjure up the tears that my heroes deserved.

Behind my wrinkled brow, they lived.
Danced.
Morphed themselves together into an ever-present consciousness, answering the questions I asked to no one.
I talked to it out loud some days, when I was especially alone.

Sometimes, I would see these friends out in public,
on a graphic tee in the hallway,
or a backpack in the classroom.
I would always greet them enthusiastically.
“I love your t-shirt!  Book four is the best!”
(With a warm, sweaty face way too much nervous laughter)
“That’s such a cool water bottle!  Which Avenger is your favorite?”
(Hands clutching hair, leg bouncing)
“I… like your sketchbook!”
(Hopeful smile, averted eyes)

And we would talk to each other (!)
About our shared interest and have a fun conversation (!)
For a few minutes.
I’d talk to them  the next time I saw them, too.
And every time we were in class together.
Then I hatched a daring plan.

My mom offered permission and a date,
my dad offered pizzas and the basement TV,
and I extended to my friends
an invitation.

No one came.