I had two dreams.
One where I tripped a kid with a hula hoop and ran.
One where I boarded a train toward a new chapter.
I woke up thinking about revenge, hiding, and forward movement.
And I remembered a scene—one of the earliest in my memory:
my 3rd or 4th birthday party at an indie bookstore.
The boys from my class, invited against my will,
popping all of the balloons.
I felt it as a dishonoring stampede.
I remember that confusion—Why is this happening?—
and I remember my mom’s response to my broken heart:
passivity.
This came from dreams. And from memory.
It’s a place I visited this morning—
a sprout of self-assertion still growing, a shape looking for a hole.
Maybe these sprouts live in your garden, too.
Or in your shadow garden.
✶ ✶ ✶ ☾ ✶ ✶ ✶
Even Stains Aren’t Permanent
I see the sprouts of subtle vengeance in the shadow of my garden.
The parts of me that developed estranged and off-kilter—
the Me who stands frozen, afraid, and confused.
Elle takes Jojo’s toy. Jojo takes it back.
That quiet power to assert a Self—
as a statement, not a drama—
I’m learning it now, because I didn’t learn it then.
I’m a Priestess,
and I still cast vindictive spells from the shadows.
Not because I’m hateful (I promise)—
but because I learned quiet and internal was safest.
My child heart embedded this lesson in me:
that justice is best pursued
as a tribulation for one.
What’s lovely about growing up,
it’s the opening of Integration.
She lives in me, and I live in her.
In a mythic library, decades ago,
I coded lessons in the language of fear.
As the peeling deck in our garden reminds me,
even stains aren’t always so permanent.
Last night I boarded a train. I packed light.
I learn from what visits me in sleep—
tree canopies arched in lush, green sky,
sand bridges softening the space between neighbors,
spirit visits with my healing Self.
I went where citizens of the world say
So What?
to clock time.
There is beauty and newness everywhere,
when I look.
