Fat. Fat and slow and sluggish. That's what they all thought when they saw her.
    Valerie looked at herself in the mirror and tried not to cry. Obese. That's what the doctor said.
    "Valerie!" her mother called, banging on the door. "Hustle up and get downstairs! Your brother's going to be here any minute with your dad, and I want the whole family there! Emmalyn's already ready!"
    "I'm coming!" Valerie snapped, throwing...

Sitting in the pale room, we stare at the clock that has yet to move. No one makes a sounds, not even to sneeze or cough and it is making me kind of nervous. I hate silence: I have never been able to bear it. The room we are in has no windows, so all the light comes from fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling. Everything is white here, all of the items but the clothes of the contestants. The...

your eyes cannot perceive the nuances of color. raging scarlet. calming malachite. serene cerulean. cheery gold. and haughty silver. you are blind to their hues. your world is a black and white photo.
you peer through the lenses of naivety. 

life & death & love & hatred & virtue & vice. 
life perseveres & love triumphs & virtue beams, victorious. 

a man robs a bank and is sentenced to prison. crime and punishment. black and white. 
you cannot see the...

    "Sign for this, please," Seliah asked in a good-natured voice as she held out the clipboard to the woman.
    The woman nodded, her face hard as she balanced a baby on one hip. Seliah instinctively glanced behind her to a toddler picking his nose in the hall.
    "You have only two children, I hope," she said, raising an eyebrow as the little boy smiled behind his mother.
    The woman glanced up at...

    I recently saw a video of people in Italy singing out their window to beat the COVID-19 blues. It warmed my heart to see everyone coming together in such an awful time. I walk down the street in my neighborhood and expect no one to be outside. But instead I see kids playing, people biking down the streets or dancing in their driveway.
    It especially warms my heart when I hear of people donating to hospitals. Or maybe...

A wave was crushed on top of me today,
a harsh, violent, angry wave. 

With freezing water 
and blistering heat 
all at the same time 

I couldn't help the sense of...loneliness 
the 'wave' of loneliness and silence. 

Yet I was filled with people, 
family and friends, 
but, I couldn't help it. 

The wave was too strong 
and the sand was piercing. 

Day 9 was a wave of awarness. 
We'll see what happens tomorrow. 
 

    The clock ticked ominously, and there was no way to stop it. I sat by the bed, watching the monitor blip like the ticking clock, and listening to my son's breaths come unevenly between these rhythms. An hour ago, my husband had begged me to let him stay the night with Dan, but I told him to go and see the kids. My eldest daughter Kathy was nearly nineteen, and the third, Joseph, twelve already, but I knew...