I'm finally leaving home. I've moved many times in my life. So often I was running. This time, I'm moving because I want more.

But that's not what this is about. This is about my Papa. I know he wants nothing more than for me to succeed and to persue my dreams. I also know… Read full post »

I was holding her hands, rushing alongside the stretcher. Nurses and doctors were yelling, telling me to move back. Her eyes fluttered, her mouth open, her lips were dry and cracked.

"Wake up!" I yelled at her.

A nurse pulled me away. I look at the nurse’s face, she looked like… Read full post »

 When I lived in DC I was not an honorable woman. I used to cheat and lie. No, I did not work for a lobbyist, but I was dishonest just the same. I have changed.

In DC I had several friends who loved me just the same. They worried and confronted.… Read full post »

My mother committed suicide over a decade ago. I got a call from a guy I had dated a bit the other day telling me he attempted suicide the night before. He knew about my mom. 

People come to me with personal stuff, people I don't know well, people I work… Read full post »

I'm building a new heart. Closed for repair. I make it stronger. I keep my heart honest. However, I will no longer turn a blind eye to deception. Not so quick to give all, to trust blindly. It no longer opens all the… Read full post »

I wish I could have held your hand in mine,

And told you not to do it.

I wish I could have held your hand in mine,

That last time you went to sleep.

Mama, I have scars inside,

From the ones I didn't keep.

Mama,… Read full post »

I think of them. The ones from the past. The ones I hurt, and who hurt me. The ones who left footprints on my heart.

I compare. There are no comparisons.

The one who first took my heart, now married with a new baby. He was… Read full post »

Deb, my step-mom, does not get mushy, not with me. We are very different and I was a precocious little kid who demanded all my father's attention. I never bit or hit her or told her I hated her, but as a child, my father was my world and I needed… Read full post »

This is a piece I wrote at The OS Writers Retreat this past Saturday. The prompt presented by Kate Hymes was "tell us something we cannot forget" after she read the poem Each Bird Walking, by Tess Gallagher.

I did not expect to be so moved. I sort of had my… Read full post »

I was once curvier. Big boobs, big ass. I never liked it on me. Then, it seemed a burden, unwanted weight on my small frame. I grew to accept it, after trying anything, unhealthy things, to be rid of the womanly curves.

Now I am thin. I am in my… Read full post »

My hands are like my mom's. It bothers me. I like it. Kinda bittersweet. She had small elfish hands with crooked pinky fingers. So do I. They show my age, actually they look older.

The freckles on my face give me a youthful look. Most guess mid twenties. I'm… Read full post »

I live out loud, I think I always have. My heart is big and tough and open. But I go through it, a smaller, not so destructive, version of my mother's madness. Sensitive, perceptive, sentimental, smart, creative, but not always real.

I remember my childhood.  

I… Read full post »