The irony of this post is not lost on me.   I couldn't wait to share my thoughts with my fb friends about how social media is destroying us.  I should say "our use of social media", as the invention is quite spectacular and useful in ways most don't utilize.  I'm obviously not the first to observe this, but it's ignored on such a huge level that it bears repeating. Smart phones, Facebook, Texting.....all of it, is making us dull.   It takes so mu...

I suppose it's a bit telling that for the majority of my trip, my tongue was completely covered in lie bumps...11 to be exact. I couldn't eat for days, and even speaking became a chore.  I assumed that a high stress level inspired these extremely painful nuisances.  Dan, my love, says these abscessed taste buds are your body telling you that it's trying to fight off an infection.  Sevilla, Erica's mom, says it's an overload of acidity in your system.  Jeremiah,...

Of course there was always the desire to be with him, as far as that would carry her. She wanted him to breath only her scent and for his needs to be met by her presence alone. Whether it was caused by nature or environment, she wanted what everyone wanted: to call the person she saw as perfection and loved with a heart that he invented... her very own... and for him to feel the same way. But, beyond that...more than that...she wanted to crawl inside of him, live inside of him, be him. She wa...

If I had a pen, I would write this down. If my heart was still whole the world might not seem so harsh. Maybe I wouldn't have had to become this. If I would have kept my mouth closed I might not have given evil a way in. If my soul hadn't escaped I'd probably hold my chin above my chest and look less like a marionette. If my hands would stop shaking I'd be able to put my finger on what it is I'm missing. If I had a spirit, I might be resilient in a way that would save myself...not...

My kindergarden teacher gave us an assignment: Go outside to the playground and pick up one thing from nature that you think is beautiful. My classmates began scurrying around in a race to find the most beautiful things before anyone else could get their hands on them. I lingered next to the door, wondering how I could ever just pick one thing when I saw so much beauty. I watched as the kids picked up leaves, rocks, twigs, and blades of grass. I didn't want anything anyone else had, of...

I need your hands to be calloused and your knees to be bruised.   I need to know that tears have marked your face and pain has smudged the rouge of your heart.     I need to know that you’ve seen hell, that you’ve lived there, and that you fought to get out.   I need to know that you do not covet comfort, stability, or permanence.   You need to hold the awareness in your soul that the deepest beauty only acquaints itself with wreckage and rubble. ...

I’m glad life isn’t simple.   I’ve recently come to the conclusion that my life will always be tough.   I will always struggle to keep my head above water.   There will always be oil leaks, and roaches, and unpaid citations and electric bills, and sometimes I’ll have to find something to pawn so I can buy gas to get to work the next day.   Friends will often be hurt by what I do or don’t say or do, and relationships will be broken.   I will fail in forgive...

On my drive home from work every night, there is a road I leave my tracks on that has left an imprint on my heart.   It is flawlessly straight and illuminated only by the occasional car lights passing by.    It’s perpendicular to the railroad tracks, which are parallel to the road that carries me the rest of the way home.   It’s only a few blocks from the highway lights, the coffee shops, and the yuppies, but one particular part of the road gives you the serene ...

“ I really lived life to its fullest and that got me in trouble from time to time.”                                                                    &...

my body remains curled on the mattress   my screaming thoughts reduced to moisture on my pillow… the pillow that's not even mine    everything in me is running away   my soul escaped out the front door   the one I failed to lock   and it got into my car the one with bumps and bruises from its owner losing control   then it drove away down any road it could find the roads that fear evapora...

“It’s hard to stumble when on your knees,” the desktop read my freshman year.   In a mocking sort of retort, I had written, “Preach it!”   I figured whoever stole a message from a church marquee to defile public property deserved a little sarcasm.     They wrote back.   The next day, I walked into French class to find a message inquiring about my gender.   I said I was female, and apparently he (it turned out to be a boy) started feeling guilty ab...

Being a practicing observer of people and seeker of adventure (check the name, cowboy), my recent escapades have proved to be all of exhilarating.   The more people I meet, and the more open I am to their stories, the more an overall feeling of peace consumes me.   After my 4a.m. run-in with a police officer after running a light then running out of gas (run, in case you didn’t know, is the word of the day), I walked to the closest open gas station.   It was closed...

Trinitie as I knew her is now gone.   There’s this whole other person beneath the surface that’s even more confused than before. There’s a certain symbolism in the X’s drawn in magic marker on her hands.   She’s in college now, she’s 19, and she has absolutely no idea who she is or what she believes anymore.   She used to have the list---you know the one.   It’s that list that everyone has containing what we will or will not accept in a mate.   That lis...

I recently started college, and although there are far too many similarities to high school for my taste, the differences are confounding.   I decided to attend, not only to achieve my aspirations, but because of a profound desire to be surrounded by the beautiful minds of the future.   I realize that it’s cliché for me to presume that all great minds would choose further academic education, or even that there would be any insightful students at all on campus, but I figure it’s a...