Growing up, there were always a lot of people at my house. My mom and step dad were sociable people. In their line of work, it paid to be sociable--it gave them a chance to show off the product and find new buyers. I understood this, but didn’t particularly enjoy the company. Unfortunately, a high percentage of their male friends were, well, creepy, to use a nice term for it. I never knew what drugs they were on at any given time (to give my parents credit, they...

      When I was fifteen, I was working for my mom’s friend, Steve, as a babysitter. He was 32, divorced, and working as a trucker. His two kids were by far the biggest brats I’ve ever met in my life. That really has no relevance to the story, but has to be mentioned.      One day, Steve invited me and my mom to a snowmobile race the following weekend. Mom was busy, but said that I might as well go since I’d never been to one befo...

Voices (sssshhhh) wouldn't (shut up!) stop...

I am not yours. You are not mine. I will not be owned. You will never be tamed. I know you as I know myself. I will never fully understand you. You are always in the rooms of my soul Where there are doors you will never unlock. You tore the bars from my prison cell, I stayed with you in yours. You are the army that stands beside me. Mine is the voice that speaks from the void. We are madness, chaos, confusion. We are the calm center. We are the rain and the wind and the lightning. We are the ...

"Gained my freedom, found my voice."

Horror lives and heroes die in my dark and lonely dreams. Black devours the bluest sky in my dark and lonely dreams. I close my eyes and drift away upon a river where evil holds sway. Floating through lands of dark despair- through oceans of death and forests of fear.   Dragons eat the pretty maids in my dark and lonely dreams. Knights will fall with broken blades in my dark and lonely dreams. When night takes hold my mind is free to let loose the demons inside of me. They take me to the...

A man's voice yells, a woman cries, a child screams. The neighbors turn up the radio. A woman's face, swollen and broken. "I'm so clumsy in the dark," she says.   A little boy smiles and laughs. Voices raise, hands slap, his body slams the wall. A little boy hurts another child. A little boy yells, a little boy wets his pants. "Not welcome," the daycare says. "Keep him at home." A little boy is swallowed by violence.   A little girl fears to stay home. ...

I stand by the mirror and look in my eyes, the pills held in my hand. My eyes are the windows to a soul that never should have been. An accidental spark of life that God did not intend.   And as I close my crying eyes and try to build the nerve, I think of those who gave me love that I do not deserve. If they saw the girl behind my eyes- the selfishness, the greed- that makes me want to turn and run from anyone in need, the love in their eyes would start to fade, and quickly die away. Th...