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Religion: a structured system of beliefs, practices, symbols, and values that connect humanity to the sacred, divine, or supernatural

Check list… Growing up

As a Mormon girl, my church would ask us to make a check husband list.

Here we go… I thought about this HARD! I couldn’t imagine a “man”. My Mother had a sharp tongue towards my father, My father reacted. Okay

#1 someone who is not reactive.

#2 I guess someone who knows how to control their emotions?

#3 Someone who can talk is never silent, even at movies.

Silence was never good growing up,

Screaming always comes after.

#4 someone who can regulate themselves.

#5 Someone asks me questions even when they already know why I'm in a “mood”.

#6 Someone who I can always talk to.

#7 Someone I can be silent with.

#8 My Best Friend…

Even when I go on about religion, celebrities, history, or UFO stuff he is always just listening.   Even if he thinks I'm just “going down a rabbit hole”.

Okay so check list

Sorry ADHD

#9 ??Mormon?? Okay he is a young… check!! Mormon… Kind of!!!

#10 live, laugh, love.

#11 tattoos!! I think they are hot… YES ! :p

#12 likes to have an opinion on my outfits: make me a model.. Check!!!!

When I hear the other girls in church,

#1 Must have a testimony.

#2 Must be a return missionary!!

#3 Must be cute!!

Wait no I don't wanna marry cause what the FUCK.

#number 13 never get married, never have kids…

Goal get baptized at 8 years old

#4 must wear garments at 18 .

#5 never kiss a girl or guy.

#number 14 Must have a brain…

#6 Must get married in a temple!

#7 I must go on a mission to be worthy of a husband!!!

#number 15 WTF am I in…

Check list… 2022

#1 HIM

Blub blub blub….

Based on the most recent available BYU Campus Climate Survey (published March 2022), approximately 73% of victims of unwanted sexual contact at BYU did not report the incident to any professional source, while only 1.7% reported to the police. A 2022 BYU study noted that in Utah, only about 12% of sexual assaults are reported

I saw the warning in the way he smiled,
too polished, too patient, too practiced.
Like he’d rehearsed kindness
in a mirror somewhere dark.

He said I was beautiful
before he knew my middle name.
Said he could “take care of me,”
like care was something bought
with hotel rooms and secrets.

At first it looked like rescue.
Fresh nails. New clothes.
A promise wrapped in expensive perfume.
But promises can bruise too.

Then came the rules.
Don’t talk to strangers.
Don’t use your phone too long.
Smile bigger.
Wear this.
Don’t ask questions.

And suddenly the doors felt heavier.
The air felt smaller.
My reflection looked like a missing poster
waiting to happen.

I noticed the girls in the hallway—
eyes dimmed like burnt-out streetlights,
laughing too loudly
at jokes that weren’t funny.

One of them grabbed my wrist softly
and whispered,
“If you can leave, leave now.”

So I ran.

Not graceful.
Not brave like movies make it seem.
I ran shaking, crying, sick with fear,
heart crashing against my ribs
like it wanted out too.

I ran before my name became a price.
Before my body became a business.
Before I forgot the sound
of my own voice saying no.

And somewhere beneath the neon lights,
with blistered feet and mascara tears,
I realized survival
doesn’t always look heroic.

Sometimes it looks like a girl
choosing herself
fast enough
to disappear.

June 2021

In a world of sharpened eyes
and men who measure love like ownership,
I found one
who never tightened his hands around me.

He speaks softly,
not because he is weak,
but because storms already exist
without him becoming one too.

Other men carry jealousy
like a match waiting for gasoline—
turning every laugh into suspicion,
every freedom into a fight.

But he watches me bloom
without needing to pluck the petals.
He trusts the way sunlight trusts the morning—
without fear it will not return.

His loyalty is quiet.
Not loud promises thrown like chains,
but small things:
the way he stays,
the way he listens,
the way kindness lives in him
even on hard days.

And maybe that is rare now—
a man who does not confuse love with control,
who does not punish beauty for being seen,
who does not make a woman smaller
to feel bigger himself.

Beside him,
I do not feel watched.
I feel safe.

And in this world of jealous men,
that kind of love
feels almost holy.

2017

She was sixteen,
still writing hearts in the corners of notebooks,
still sleeping with stuffed animals tucked beside her ribs,
still young enough to believe love meant
forever.

Then the doctor spoke softly,
like quieter words hurt less.
White walls.
Cold hands.
A sentence that split her life in two.

“You may never have children.”

And suddenly every dream she carried
fell to the floor beside her shoes.

She looked at her boyfriend
waiting for him to say,
“I choose you anyway.”

But love turned selfish in his mouth.

He said he wanted twins someday,
a little boy with his laugh,
a tiny girl with curls running through the kitchen,
sticky hands and bedtime stories,
Christmas mornings and scraped knees.

And she listened—
trying not to cry too loud—
because none of those dreams
had her in them anymore.

He left like she was unfinished.
Like her body had failed some invisible test.
Like she was only valuable
for what she could give him.

And years later,
she saw the pictures.

Him smiling beside another woman.
Tiny twin babies wrapped in blue and pink blankets.
Then another little girl after that,
sitting on his shoulders,
calling him Daddy.

And it hollowed her out.

Not because she still loved him,
but because she remembered the girl
who begged herself to be enough.

The girl who sat on the bathroom floor at sixteen
holding her stomach
like apologizing to it would fix everything.

She wondered if those children would exist
if she had been able to carry them.
If she was the empty space
that made room for someone else’s happiness.

He got the life he wanted.
The twins.
The little girl.
The family photos framed on walls.

And she got silence.

No tiny footsteps down the hallway.
No sleepy “Mom?” at midnight.
No one with her eyes
or her crooked smile.

Just the aching feeling
that she helped build a future
she would never belong to.

And sometimes the cruelest heartbreak
is not losing the person—

it’s watching them live the exact life
they said they couldn’t live without,
while you sit alone
wondering why love made you feel
so replaceable.

I found someone who didn’t ask me to shrink,
who didn’t mistake my silence for strength,
or my softness for something to fix.

They didn’t arrive with a list of demands,
or a blueprint of who I should become—
they just stood there,
like they already knew I was enough.

They didn’t expect me to be perfect,
or always certain,
or endlessly easy to understand.

They expected me to be human.

To change my mind.
To have loud days and quiet ones.
To need space, and still come back.
To be a storm sometimes,
and still be worth staying for.

And slowly, without pressure,
I stopped performing,
stopped editing my edges down to something smaller.

Because being expected—truly expected—
not for what I could do,
but for who I already was…

felt less like a demand
and more like coming home.

My Sweet dear mother, she would have been very disap...