Belles-lettres no.6 desert roseMallorca, SpainI was drawn to you because you had faith. You were like a beam of light, a desert rose without a trace of arrogance. You existed more simply than I had ever dared or wanted to dare, but somehow you READ MORE

Belles-lettres no.5 on the outside looking in You hated your name.It turned your stomach inside out like peeling back the rind of a blackened banana, but worse.The sound of it brought you pain.But why did you loathe it, why was it like the smell READ MORE

Belles-lettres no.1 Pretty lights inside my mind, the sotto voce of a touch, a hand a faceThe Pines of Rome beckoningClamoring by a noiseless coastWhere is the proverbial queen of the night,Has she—fallen into Pandora’s box?It’s so pretty on the READ MORE

ESSAY strawberriesYou’re not that girl in the photo with silver rings on every one of her fingers using a knife to cut strawberries into a bowl. Something about her stance tells you that she would walk away, that she wouldn’t stand with her back READ MORE

Belles-lettres no.4 The ways you viewed the worldBodies, bad jokes, and a cement wall--        That was your frame of mind                        I sat there calm, but trembling from head to foot, what was beyond the wall of your words that READ MORE