Twice I have wandered the solid-color halls of Crystal Bridges—a mostly free art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas—gazing at walls peppered with paintings, sketches, and collages like the glittering gemstone and woven feather earrings clinging to plastic jewelry trees in Macy’s.
Moments our porch light observes, and we do not: The American Dagger and White Lichen moths hesitating and fluttering around its dusty glass when I get home from work at 10:33 each night.
Things that make you an adult (Noted by an only child) Pepper on your scrambled eggs. Especially after all of your eighteen childhood years, insisting to your mother that you do not like pepper.
I tell myself so many lies to live the way I do. You wouldn't believe the sheer number. Or maybe you would. This is my confession. A while back—I couldn't even tell you when—I let the demons in, and they've been here ever since. Roaming through rooms, stashed in dark corners, smiling black teeth under... Continue Reading →
There's too much sh*t and not enough words. A Christian college was supposed to be good for my language, edifying I suppose. Ah, well. You know what they say about a "well-placed damn." There's dried blood on these typewriter keys. Let's fix that. I've been away awhile. The bleeding never stopped. Only the words did.... Continue Reading →
I believe in writing that whispers. I believe in writing that doesn't shout to get your attention. It snaps, only once. *Snap* To beckon you in, to draw you closer. To lean in, to hold eye contact. To listen, writer to reader. Voice to voice. If you can't hear it, draw a little closer. I'll... Continue Reading →
He hung there, suspended between surface and depth, oxygen and solvent, ripples and stillness. The turtle stayed perfectly still, webbed feet motionless, his head just barely protruding from the deceptive water. He floated, indefinably content in the patch of sunlight that was picking its way though the adjacent tree branches to grace the water's nebulous... Continue Reading →
How do I encompass this? How do I capture this? Do I dare chain this moment down to the binds of paper and serif? Am I even a writer if I don't try? I grew up in an art gallery. I have never said it that way before, but I think it is the truest... Continue Reading →
Do you ever have those moments when you just soak up people? You just absorb them because you want to know everything they are. Do you ever desire to read their life story, splayed before you like the pages of an encyclopedia? Every experience that molded them, defined; every action, its cause and effect; every word... Continue Reading →
I can't write about it because I wasn't there. But I've grown up in its aftermath. Every autumn, that one day. Homework wasn't due; assignments weren't added; class wasn't roudy or noisy. And, for one of the few times of the year, the old box-set TV screens were turned on, buzzing to life as disoriented... Continue Reading →
A Study in Crimson Prose 