Thank you for caring more about us than you do about money. You didn’t have to be at every practice, you didn’t have to meet us in the weight room, you didn’t have to go to meets…but you did.

Thank you for that big ole cup of depressing.

Because life is better on shuffle mode.

Am I trying to be friends with someone who doesn’t exist anymore? He’s their Steven. Not My Steven.

Because I don’t feel the need to tell you my life story. I don’t want my secrets splashed across the fickle pages of the internet.

Sometimes your heart bleeds a symphony and sometimes it just bleeds blood.

“I’m easily wooed by mythical characters,” she told him sheepishly.

The blood in her palms danced within her veins.

He is my Jacob Black; my savior from darkness, my friend, my love. We were in love with each other, and it just wasn’t meant to be. He was right. I did love him. I tried to set boundaries, but limits were so hard to keep when I was in love with him, more so than I allowed myself to realize. What had my stupidity cost us? Weeks? Months? Years of agony without each other. I missed him. I missed my pup, my Jacob Black. I wanted my distance. No matter how much it pained him…he gave that to me. I didn’t want him erased from my life though.

The weirdest parallel ever. Thank you.

There’s nothing like an unexpected death to change your perspective on the way you’re living.

You don’t even know the hurt you’ve caused.

She was disgusted with herself. Recoiling from her own blood-stained hands.

Shoot me in the mouth and be done with it.

Please just let me drop into the six-foot grave quickly. Back where I came from. Quick and there won’t be any trouble.

Was she far enough away? How far was far enough? Just to be sure she drove down the sandy road another 10 miles. She was surrounded by sand and a couple cacti. She put the car in park in the middle of the road. Her knuckles were white from clutching the steering wheel. She shook them, loosening the joints in her hand.

Pulling a shovel from the back seat, she set to digging a hole about 20 yards from the dirt path. It was noon. Beads of sweat rolled down her face as she worked. The ground was hard and parched. She dug until the hole was about 6 feet deep and 4 feet wide, her adrenaline fueling her task.

She popped the trunk.

Black trash bags were stuffed into the small cavity. Copper leaked into the air. She puked into the road beside the Sedan. She grabbed the bag on top.

Her husband, Larry, had always been an angry man. Angry at the stock market, the kid’s soccer coaches, and the way she cooked. He never appreciated her. He never thanked her for ignoring the affair he had with his secretary. He was a cheating, angry man.  His secretary, Renee, had invited him to a dinner at her house, along with his colleagues. She wasn’t invited. He complained the following week as to why his wife couldn’t make steak like Renee. She had made him steak the night before.

“How was it, baby?” she asked him, as she dragged his lifeless body along the sand. “Better than Renee’s?” She kicked him into the fresh pit, “I thought so.”

She returned to the car. Two smaller bags were left.

She pulled one out and set it on the ground, the tinkle of a charm bracelet made it past the sounds of the scratchy trash bag.

There was no denying Emily was one of a kind. She didn’t like the music other kids did, she didn’t like the movies other kids did, she didn’t read what other kids read, and she certainly didn’t hang out with any other kids. Calling herself the Angel of Death, she clothed herself in black and rimmed her eyes in heavy makeup. She had changed her name from Emily to Victoire, more medieval. How rude, what an absolute insult to a mother. She had declared that she loved the musical Sweeney Todd, slashing the air with razor blades, one day.

“Still your favorite, Em?” Her mother asked. “I think it’s mine, too,” she replied pushing bag over the edge to rest in a heap atop the other.

One last bag.

The bag was lighter than the rest, and she carried it in the air.

Roger was just too much. He colored on the walls, scrubbed the counters with mac & cheese, played with toy cars on the stairs, and talked out of turn. She had asked him politely to take his toys elsewhere; the stairs was no place for a little boy to play. He had insisted, leaving there later for her to trip on and stumble down the rest of the stairs. She had carried him to the top of the stairs and let go.

The bag fell with a plop and a shuffle. “The stairs are no place for a little boy to play, darling. I thought I told you better.”

She pulled a can of gasoline from the car and covered the bags. She dropped a match, and turned on her heel. She started the car and continued down the sandy road.

As the dust settled at the next stop sign, her eyes flashed to the rear view mirror as a cloud of black smoke filled the horizon.

You’re the Dwight Schrute to My office.

Because people aren’t perfect, life isn’t perfect. You can’t expect to wait around for perfection, it’s just not there.

The book sat down next to me. “You want to read me, don’t you? You want to forget about your worries and inhale the sweet refuse of my pages.” The book beckoned, teased. I turned away.  

Stupid Blood. Dumb Bella. I ran my finger along the scar on my hand.

Sometimes you just need to sit down and cut and paste random pictures together. Life can be that simple and that abstract and complicated, all at the same time.

Her leg pumped rhythmically against the hardwood floor

He felt her slipping, falling from his grasp. His hand was outstretched reaching for her, but she didn’t grab it.

Sometimes you can get so thirsty for a relationship that you throw yourself at any human with a beating heart. On desperate days, those without. This was a desperate day.

I knew that he was aching to talk to me, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have anything to say. I wasn’t ready to talk yet.