Connection used to be so easy. A wave walking to class. A smile across the room. A glimpse around 250 other students sitting in identical chairs, venting about the same lectures and the same exams. Whispers through campus about this club or that professor. Connection used to be effortless, inevitable in that bubble. All it took was a few steps.

Now, a picture hangs on the wall in your apartment, ...

Smoke left an ash trail to the sky. It looked like it was coming from my village.

Abandoning my hunt in the forest, I grabbed my bow and arrows and raced toward the grey plumes. With the smell of burning growing stronger and stronger, I covered my nose and mouth while I kept sprinting, a thousand thoughts flooding my mind.

Is this the ambush Uncle Lei had warned about? Could it be an enemy nat...

There was a time

when I dreamed of wind

and breezing through white clouds

leaving streaks in the sky

Looking below at a wide sprawl of

the world,

smaller than I ever thought it could be.

If only my body could turn light enough,

if my bones were hollow

or my arms were wings

From the sky I see dots,

I used to be one of them,

barely visible, scurrying about

as if nothing were more important

th...

For once, Daisy couldn't picture what her life would look like.

Perhaps she would wander aimlessly on cobblestone streets steeped in history or in towns famous for their coffee beans or their chocolate or their fish. Perhaps she would write inside trains going any direction, through whistling wheat fields, bustling cities with towers that nearly touch the clouds, or along a coastline watching the...

Innocent beginnings

Dipped in poisonous possibilities

A game of roulette

for the promise of riches,

of love,

of fulfillment

The clink of two wine glasses,

smiles and

overzealous laughter,

Rose tinted glasses at first,

then broken shards

When you realize

that intention isn't enough

that you cannot hold the future

in your hands

and shape it every which way....