Everyday I spend with women in shelter I am awestruck by how much courage there is to be gathered in the face of violence, whether it is sexual, physical, or verbal. It is a very fragile moment, when I look a woman in the eye and ask her if she has been sexually assaulted. I want to be as present as I can possibly be in that moment.  And while the sense of powerlessness and betrayal quivers in her voice, I wait for her to speak.  

In New York, a new organization has opened a shelter specifically to serve foreign born victims of sex-trafficking.  One shelter in the entire city, in the entire region for that matter. Whether through literal prostitution or pornography production, the buying and selling of sex requires bodies to be viewed as commodities.  And the trauma and dehumanization is not less than profound in the midst of a massive demand and a violent silence. I am speaking most angrily about children and minors here, though I would argue that many if not most adults selling their bodies do not understand what a choice is. We live during a time when isolated bedrooms are being used as viral colosseums, where gladiators are young girls and boys,  and the tickets holders will let you watch from your own private room. Everyday young women are told they have no where else to go, that no one will believe them.  Let us learn how to recognize the signs, the invisible lives that are right before us. There are millions of slaves passing through our borders, and their oppressors walk freely on our soil. It is a problem that goes beyond a few horrifying stories, it is systematic, epidemic, and it is time to educate ourselves on what can be done. 

 RestoreNYC
love146
worldhope

faast

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things.
~Lewis Carroll

Recently I took a stroll through the woods on Anastasia Island,

it is often said there are no seasons in Florida

but I beg to differ,
the trees here are as lively and as changing
as any I have seen
while there are more thumps and scurries

and rustling noises between the leaves.

On this walk as the sun began to fade and

I reluctantly left the woods, 

you will see what happened in the sky.
And I am home here, even if not entirely sure why.

From a Season of Doubt

It was late August.
I wasn't thinking of
how a flock of birds
flying west

might search for a canopy
on a yellow, treeless plain
or how their wings might
tip and sway as the granite
patriarchs began to
rise into the sky

Not even
could I imagine
their solace, the trembling
laughter of applause
tingling through the
evergreen trees

when they finally reached
their boughs in the place
I could no longer weep.

It was the birds who knew
how to travel and soar
and equally how to
 nest and stay
how to let the sun touch
down on their warm and
weary wings

And even though
I did not hear them sing
 there were birds everywhere