When I was 2 years old, my dad's mother would shout at me to "Stop it Stop it " as I lay on my back rolling my head from side to side over and over again. She shouted and I stopped it, but as soon as she left the room, I'd start doing it all over again. Years later, I learned that particular behavior was a form of self comfort. Left on my own from early childhood I had no choice but to live in constant fear and fight it, face unbearable loss and bear it, I had become the unwilling target of vicious child abuse and endured it as best I was able until I could escape it and painstakingly find and return to my biological family. That is what my poems are about, survival, strength, triumph, joy, grief, and redemption. Many years later, I still find myself lying on my back, turning my head from side to side, waiting for my grandmother to shout at me to stop it. She might have added," You should have outgrown that by now "

The author's 2nd work. A poetical account of self-salvation from the continuing snapshots of child abuse by adoptive parents. Poems about the lost, loss, depression, hoarders, a beloved childhood dog, and the continuing account of life with her biological family and others.

I am not a poet in the traditional sense. I rarely have a rhyme, I don't care about stanzas or acceptable academic style. I am telling stories in short form, in thought patterns that stop. and start. Periods and commas fall where they will, and I let them. I have found it the best way to write about my subject matter without losing my own mind or the reader's. My poems will give but brief glimpses into detailed, often harsh subject matters, such as severe child abuse by adoptive parents, the lost, the unfortunate, the homeless. Others tell about the joyful reunion with biological family, or a crooked Christmas tree, or people I have known, places I have been, and those who have inspired me.