When language is too much to bear: Words are heavy, and naming things has made me weary. Without a name, I hide it beneath/behind my life. I pack it away and it is forgotten.

Words are carriers of meaning. If your words meant to wound, you meant to wound. You blame your split self, your inner child, the black muck oozing over your eyes. I forgive both of you, but give neither of you…

the musician is a bear. maybe there is a code? in Jerome, some things are too hard. let it be that they are rude and gruff, but have a point. how can we help them without turning to pitchforks and…

one of my favorite times to take a walk is when school is being let out the sunlight hits the buildings here differently than anywhere else keep chasing the light they say crayola colors of kids pictures imagined on the…

I want to be unproductive ... ... to ponder the magic of a morning fog. ... to play with the fountain pen I was gifted by my middle adult child. ... to wait on my walk to let the dog…

Words draw blood, when aimed at tender flesh. A cruel mother shapes her child’s entire soul with language that comes from a careless mouth, so that no matter how regretful she may be for that language in the next moment,…

Agatha clutched John's hand it was a small hand even for an 8-year-old. His fingers were long though, piano fingers. She envisioned those fingers gliding along the keys of the piano in their living room That was just an image.…

(Note: I’m using this to do some revising of characters in my work in progress novel.) “Annie McCracken.” Dale Rude heaved himself to his feet behind his oak desk. “I figured you’d be back in Chicago by now.” “Yeah,” I…

She tried to picture herself the way she was then, fifteen years ago. Fifteen. Numbers are numbers. She remembers becoming a total of fifteen years; it was her age once. It felt old, then, an achievement. That was before she…

I recently traveled to France with a group of 24 writers from the graduate program in creative writing at a college near me in the Philadelphia suburbs. We were there for 11 days. I’m not a student in the program…

"Why are you always fucking things up? I wish you were more like your uncle. He never brought such calamity upon our heads. Back when he was alive, things always went smoothly, without all of these fucking mishaps." Marius hunched…