Everything happens for a reason

Utter shit

A glimpse of happiness, ripped out of me

Viciously

Time moved at a fast crawl

There one moment and gone the next

Her eyes that never got to open and see my face. Her tiny mouth that never made a sound. Legs that didn’t stretch or run. Arms that never begged to be picked up

Sometimes in the silence I can hear her heart beating.

Only an echo.

Wha...

Over.

Such weight in two syllables

She felt it first like a punch to her sternum

Quick

Sharp

She was gasping for air, but getting none

She felt the word wrap around her middle like a vise

The squeeze was nauseating

The tears burned her cheeks

Then cooled

They continued their erosive path for days

Was it weeks?

Sobs escaped her long after the pools of her eyes had become arid and dry

Sh...

“Can you toss me that blanket, babe?”

“Of course, you cold, hon?” He hands me the light throw off the back of the couch.

“So cold! I can feel my nose getting cold.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my nose is cold.”

“Yeah, but you can’t feel the cold with your nose.”

“What? Of course I can!”

“No you can’t. You could touch your nose with your finger and feel that it’s cold with your finger, but...

I first saw you on my birthday

You were not the plan

We drove miles up the mountain

To the animal sanctuary, coming to see another dog…Cliff? Charlie?

We brought your soon-to-be “sister” in tow, already a neurotic mess of a puppy. She fell in the pool the night we took her home. She’s never fully recovered

Living Free Animal Sanctuary

Free living in rectangular outdoor cages of fencing

Little pr...

Eleanor was down to her last five dollars. It had all begun as a joke. She remembered laughing as she tugged Mark to the door of the fortune tellers shop, stepping through the beaded purple curtain, not noticing the three or four beads that fell to the ground at her touch.

Her last laugh caught in her throat when she sat down at the small table and caught her distorted reflection in the large gl...

When you smiled

and I had to know you.

When we embraced in secret,

but watched our closely guarded ardor

pour recklessly over our entwined hands.

Were we fated to hide our beginning

even from ourselves

until our passion proved the dam was worthless?

Ah, but what is fate,

If not choice

After choice, after choice?...