Truly, has your heart felt a love like this? — I wish there were more moments to recall, the ones that show us naked and afraid. Instead, I recall our time together as projections of idealized portraits, retouched and photo-shopped by minds unable to bear the sharp edges and blunt-force trauma that lovers stumble through along the boulder-strewn road of…

Book One, Chapter One: Tom Nelson — It’s funny how the heart aches the same way in grief and love. It’s as if the heart refuses to distinguish between the two most intense of human emotions. The only real difference between them is that one makes you cry while the other makes you smile. But that isn’t…

Everything will kill you — “Keep your head on a swivel.” Everything on the flight deck will kill you. Jetblast will roll a teenaged Sailor down the flightdeck like a bowling ball. It blasts you overboard despite the safety netting. A snapped arresting gear cable can slice a man in half or cut off his…

Love’s passionate dance — I trembled as I reached for Susanna, my Spanish Madonna, and touched her hip. My palm pressed against her soft, smooth, white flesh and her warmth spread over me until my face flushed and the burn of rising excitement engulfed me. …

Part One: Invocation — Invocation Susanna plucked a shrimp from the paper cone clutched in my hand and held it over my head like a seal trainer. She laughed as I leaned back and opened my mouth and wagged my tongue while struggling not to laugh. She brought the shrimp to my mouth, and…

Alcoholism robbed me of what I loved most — Pressed against glass, scanned, face down, born again in the cloud. Another memory retained for…what? “Marianne loves Bobby. 12th Grade. 17 Years old.” That lasted nine months before ending in bruises, abortion, and divorce. Yet, the photos remain, reminders of erstwhile lovers and friends, a past suffused in shade. Sadness…

No shame for the tears I shed into your palms — I praise you I praise you Let me lie beside you Let me lie beside you I hear the song of your spirit in the wind soughing past my ear I smell the scent that fills me in the rose that is the vessel and the blessed fragrance in your…

How I learned to hike without looking at my feet — The tall, white mountain beckons, calling to me across the years, calling me to climb once again his steep, rocky face by the trail by the stream. The stream of cold, cold water that rushes down the mountain much faster than I will ascend the mountain. …