A little green cricket came to visit me

The morning after 

He had red eyes

and along antennae that spanned his body three times over

He cocked his head to look at me

He was not afraid

~

Last night I dreamt of my sweet baby cat

His little face scared among the rest

I pulled him out and said it’s okay

Like I’ve done again and again, for all the rest

~

My dreams and visitors are of babies

and Sweet things that need my help

That are curious and open to the world

And who find me

~

I am okay with that

I am not their savior

I am just a person who is doing their duty

To the world

~

Being who I am meant to be

I was born the second sister after the first

I really wasn’t meant to

But I was a baby too, vulnerable to the world

And nobody picked me up from the crowd and held me

~

I used to think

This made me permanently messed up

Now I realize

I’m being shown my gentleness

The skill I’ve honed in the face of all the odds

The piece of me that persisted

To which the babies come and trust

Because that’s what they do

And in my arms it’s true

~

A streak of gentleness running like lightening at my core

That was formed by the beating of the hammer on the rod

Often that’s mixed up with weakness

and that makes some kind of perversion of love as need

But not if you grow, no, not if you grow

~

I have grown, I recovered my pain from the rod and the hammer

I found my power in the pool

and I pulled it from the depths

So now my gentlesness can stand on its own

Safe and protected and true

~

It is a skill many of us don’t yet know

How to pull power from the pool

That sits low in your belly

Holding all the information from your childhood 

And beyond (before)

~

Where were you?

Who were you?

I was the second sister, destined to be the third

I chose another way

~

A little bug dies in my hand

I give it a proper burial

What’s done is dead