Nothing gentle survived that farm,

lambs were drowned, deer were shot.

Baby bunnies and hares mowed down at silage time,

baby calves stuck at their mothers hips from too much rich draft.

Nothing gentle survived that farm,

only screams and shouts and slamming doors…so many slamming doors.

Raging, ragged, angry mum,

draining, demanding, dehumanising dad.

Nothing gentle survived that farm,

apart from you Tessa, and your warm caring paws and soft mats of long hair.

But you were of no use to them,

cuddles, love and care seemingly so disposable, insignificant and useless.

Why didn’t you chase sheep, perform and be vicious like they demanded?

Somehow you stayed warm, my only teacher of warmth, I miss you.

Nothing gentle survived that farm,

no gentle breeze, only roaring gales.

Power cuts matching the black energy surges,

broken plates and broken sugar bowls.

Nothing gentle could survive that farm

Bonnie was traumatised, I read her poems.

She was not worth your time but to me she taught me more in a day than you have ever about love.

An inferior human to you, a living angel to me.

Nothing gentle survived that farm.

Remember when I tried to have a gentle conversation querying God with Tom and Danielle

You sneered and ridiculed me like I was a leper you looked down on,

All I wanted was to ask about God without being torn apart.

They didn’t stand up for me but I knew they felt the destruction coming to me.

Danielles apartment in Paris and the trip to see Monet sticks within and stirs all of the could have beens.

Nothing gentle survived that farm.

I was so desperate for a rest,

from your emotional demands.

I’d clean every inch of the blackened kitchen,

scrubbing the table legs that the dogs had desperately gnawed in frustration;

I knew their feeling.

Sugary cereal would numb me out

And watching neighbours for those 20 minutes of peace

Until we heard the door….

You would yell out and we would all come running

To service you….our captor, boss and King.

Written April 2020

You are just down the road.

You have no idea how much I want to lie beside you and gently kiss your chest.

Because it is the place closest to your heart.

After all this, I may need mine resuscitated to ever re-start.

But why God when I want to love for the first time,

Am I so rejected and fed so many exhaustive lies?

How can my bambi love be so brutalised?

It makes me want to close up shop and never give again.

Or go back to my old callous ways, to a bar in a tight dress and live in sin.

Yet I am curious of what is on the other side of trying to love you.

I have a suspicion we could really create something good and true.

I also have a suspicion you may never want to know me, or even your real you.

Are you the other half of me?

Or am I utterly deluded, wanting reckless cycles of misery?

Wanting a man to have the say, the power and control;

So I never have to stretch and find out what I am really made of inside my half of my soul?

So I never have to feel the grief of losing myself completely to the role;

of being my Dads wife substitute and the filler of his holes?

Why are women often cowards with our substance?

Why do we abdicate our gifts to over nurture in almost every instance?

No wonder we end up so bitter and twisted,

the equality of things is so warped and injured.

I could put on a smile and make you a meal,

Nurture you like a mother, never knowing more than the surface onion peel.

Then go to the bedroom and get undressed,

and put on a show and a total praise fest.

Then I might think that you care for me,

for just a few seconds or minutes in an empty vacuous embrace.

Lying there knowing you’ve never asked me one question about myself, my life, my souls purpose – I literally could be any face.

Or I could grow courage and excavate every single bit of error and strife.

Get to know myself and who God created through her eyes,

then I could sing and dance for the rest of my life.

Create a life so alive that it sparks life into others lives.

Adopt suffering children and help others access their grief.

Allow myself to be fully me, what a fucking exhale of relief.

I don’t get what you are doing, I don’t know how to respond.

It feels like you’re taking our potential Holy Bond,

And choosing numb dull nothingness, the spark is almost gone.

We could be so in love, serving God and thriving.

Instead we are separated, broken and that potential feels like it’s dying.

Written September 2020

I was gifted some truth about this poem from Mary and would like to share it here, as I feel it makes it so clear as to how much my dad issues from emotional incest warp my idea of what love is:

“I know you feel like there is a potential dying – but that is not the potential for love  happiness or soul mate connection. It is the potential for abuse and addiction.

This, healing your hooks and holes, grows  the potential for you to love and join with your soul mate.

It’s funny isn’t it, how hard the injury and false belief fights for itself in us. It feels like such a loss or that there will be nothing left once it is gone. “

Photo credit: Unsplash.com Yangfan Xiao

Born to bloom beautiful,

born to grow free.

Born with both of your undealt with shit,

suffocating the life out of me.

Before I had a chance you were both,

choking the life from the roots of my tree.

Every unique flower poisoned,

God’s garden of gifts ruined & under siege.

Born breathing in both of your threats,

from the moment I gasped and took my first breath.

Inhaling them in while you held me too close.

I ingested in every toxin, every emotional dose.

Don’t laugh too loud, or cry too much,

don’t be too happy or sing or I’ll judge.

Don’t grow your own will, you were made to serve me.

I am your pastor, master and maker, now bend your head to my knee.

You have your own nature?

your own spirit and grace?

Do not be so ridiculous,

get back in your place.

You want dreams of your own,

that threaten my insecurities?

Shut up and stay small,

I own and control all opportunities.

Every time you try and breathe on your own,

I will show you why you should never try and outgrow,

my impish rule of terror,

my reign of incestuous rule.

I filled you with my error

and I enjoy watching the wreckage with you as my beggar.

Every time you try and stretch out your wings,

I will be there waiting and watching,

ready for you to fuck up like you always do.

But, there is one thing about me that you do not know Rob,

and that cannot be undone.

Is that I am born from God.

So sit there and hear me yell with my wings outstretched:

“You don’t own me and (in Goggin’s words) you don’t know me son!!!!”

Written July 2020

At a point where I was so low,

getting lost in my head.

Churning around false truths,

wallowing in false dread.

A beautiful kind bird swooped down,

Truth written on her wings.

In bright bold colours the word stretches out,

as she speaks honesty naturally sings.

She’s been busy breaking free from her cage,

and in service is showing so many of us her new found ways.

Brushing her gentle feathers of truth against my worry and stress with her Grace.

Showing me how to find my own key to my dark, lonely cage.

Though there are so many chains there that we need to still break,

and I know many errors I will inevitably make.

I will always hold dear and remember this lovely exchange.

And after absorbing the truths and resting in Gods Nature Reserve.

I want to pass it on to my fellow birds as they swoop and swerve,

So they can learn to soar and save them from some of my mistakes,

in the same way Elo Truthbird offered her knowledge, it is giving me faith.

I want every conversation or bird song with my brother sister birds,

to be an empowering passing on of the keys.

Instead of commiserating in error and injury,

I want it to go more the way my dear sister’s showing me.

I just pray that my darling sister Turthbird,

can allow herself the same attention, care and Grace,

that she is showing so many others as she gifts them the chance to hear truth, and so awake.

I pray that she will swoop and swirl and cry with God, releasing whats left of her restraints.

And under his wings she will find refuge, in amongst any of her life’s pains.

Because this bird deserves to fly so utterly, totally free,

free from any gaslighting, neglect, abuse or agony.

Free from abdicating herself and all of her needs.

Free to serve when she wants and fly just for her, in the knowing, it is ok ‘to just be me.’

Written 11/09/2020 After a phone call with Elo

Dear God

Give me wings of courage that know no bounds
And feathers made of love
Let me fly in your warmth and light
And be your messenger, your Dove.

Let me know of what you’re made of
Let me know your heart of truth
Let me walk amongst my sisters and brothers
And only do your good.

Let your channel of the holy spirit
Connect unto my heart
Let your unbound love heal me
Until ever feather is made up of your parts.

And I will soar to you and you to me
And we will help and heal
And I will no longer be a coward
And my heart from you I will no longer conceal.

Written September 2019