Stories
I spent the day turning each doll, each stuffed animal, on the shelf to face the wall. There’d been too many questions lately,questions I haven’t felt capable of answering. Each time I’ve looked up, they were still there, teetering like snow upon their li...
Precious Things
For Xuani, Ash, and Hiram Lawrence Jr.I had her name traced above my heart Cupped my belly, feeling the spark Within, I felt the beat of life, the echo of her cry Her breath a butterfly Brushing the cobwebs from the grave with her wing Oh you precious thing And she, oh she had his name tattoo...
I giggled, staring across the water, the tips of mybrilliantly painted orange toes staring back at me, wiggling like little piggies. “Hi!” I waved at them, sliding further in to the almost too hot water with a sigh, my gaze moving up the eggshell tile to...
One in Six
Dealing with my darker demons.One in sixEvery two minutes (not that I keep track)Counting out the time, alarm set on my cell phone to remind me thatFor one hundred and nineteen secondsI am safeThat I can breathe easy knowing that someone else took the bullet for me this timeGuilt and...
A perfect Sky
A road trip to SF in the 60's becomes something elseIt had been a perfect day. Raindrops had been misting out of the April sky for hours, long enough for the squeaky scrape of windscreen wipers to become just another part of the aural landscape. In his rearview mirror, Topeka had become nothing more then a...
When the Silence is Sound Enough
Taking a breather to let out the strangeness in my head. Welcome to my world.I A layer of dust lay thick in a faintly glowing square. Her finger moved languidly over its surface leaving behind a scar of nebulous light in its wake, releasing a lusterless beacon into the cell-like room. The pale beam stabbed the floor, causing her t...
Wonderland: Alice's Tale - Chapter Twelve (Two)
Alice confronts the QueenAs it turned out, I was right. Suicide wasn’t a thing you heard about much, at least not in our quiet little town. It was something that happened far away, something distant and unfathomable. And yet, that morning it had struck home with terrible precisio...
Wonderland: Alice's Tale - Chapter Eleven (One)
In which Alice recalls her memories of meeting Lucy.My life was curiously empty before meeting Lucy, that summer’s day so long ago. It was my birthday, of which I was only allowed one a year, and unique because of that, as well as it being the one day upon which my un-birthday did not fall. Summer was in f...
Wonderland: Lucy's Tale - Chapter Ten
The Final Chapter in Lucy's version of Events.I awoke suddenly, a weight upon my back, pressing me down, my face pushed so deeply into my pillow that I had to fight for every breath. A vice like grip upon the back of my neck held me still. I tried to scream, but the sound was muffled, so instead I fo...
Wonderland: Lucy's Tale - Chapter Nine
Lucy and Alice take the other fork.Much had changed this time in Alice’s nightmare world. We both recognized the setting, and yet both of us were aware that something wasn’t quite right. Oh, the changes were subtle and had we not walked this path so many times before, we might not have not...
Cold stark black and white and absent of any grayThe edges are no longer blurred and I am as cold as deathWhat I wouldn’t do to feel warm again, to feel safe?My dreams are full of images, too fast to catch hold ofPainful flashes of unfocused memory, polic...
Wonderland: Lucy's Tale - Chapter Eight
The calm before the storm.After that night, things were different between us for a while. Of course, her parent’s weren’t content with my promise that it wouldn’t happen again and my trip to the emergency room turned into a three day stay for observation, complete with IV drip tha...
Wonderland: Lucy's Tale - Chapter Seven
Lucy's concocts a desperate plan and Alice's dreams pull in a surpise guest.It was all so familiar. She was dressed as before as was I. Shadows flitted about the countryside and through the woods, and the breeze was chill upon our cheeks. We trod the path, ignoring the signs warning of danger. It was as if we’d forgotten what had...