On a narrow bed, she would awaken paralyzed, lying on her stomach with her arms wedged beneath her. The coiled snake would be on her pillow, inches from her face, its eyes staring into her own. She knew she could not move then, even to blink, and that she had to take the shallowest of [...]

Although it takes a very long time, eventually the Elephant Girl grows old . . .
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1. Beyond the Crowd, Into the Fog, the Fragment of a Child’s Heart
The air is littered with a thousand distractions, and the ground beneath her trembles from the weight of the crowd. The dissonant hum of voices swell and swarm [...]

Dr. X is pretty in a very clean looking way. Her brown skin glows with a copper tint. She has long, shiny cornrows tied back with a sky blue ribbon, perfect teeth, and slender, feminine hands. My mottled genes roil as I sit on the other side of her desk. I [...]

I saw her standing in the checkout line the other day. She was wearing a black leather jacket, and the pair of Vuarnet’s I’d given her for her 35th birthday. Her dark hair was messy, and there was an air of do-not-care about her as she waited her turn with a container of yogurt, [...]

You know what the problem with you is?  You think too much, you’ve got your head in the clouds, you need to come down to earth.  You’re too literal, too much a dreamer, you make poor choices, you’re not as smart as you think you are.  You never learn, when will you ever learn?  You [...]

Dear Vincent,
I left off wanting to be the girl under the tree, with wild hair and apricots falling around my feet, the one who scrawls words dangerously, with no consideration of time or consequence.   I also shared my fear of being forever, instead, the draftsgirl.  Carefully engineered, a single life drafted, one side, straight lines, [...]