First winter break in college.  I am back at home in Chinatown from the University of Southern California, having picked up a few table manners

Should I spill about the good ones? Before the family died. When Christmas bulbs were big and  grew hot and metal-clipped to the branches of

You love the first bittersweet sips of dark French Roast coffee in the morning. You think there is nothing better, that of everything you might

I went to Woodstock out of spite. Regardless of that fact, this is a love story because what does a 17 year old really know

I am thinking of the way your mouth turns up on one side when you point your finger down at little me and shout Car-oool,

My ex-husband died in my living room a month before the world shut down.  Two months later, I met Karen. Within an hour of our

Marin used markers to draw a butterfly with spiraling antennae. I hope you find happiness in everything you do, she wrote. Jenny covered her card

She does have wings on her back. This, I am sure of. Although I have yet to see the wings, I know that when she

I had never seen his face. I fell in love with the sound of his voice on the telephone. It was the easy way he

We chatted for hours on MSN Messenger in our bedrooms behind closed doors, the night drawing shadows on our gaunt faces, my parents fast asleep

Daphne laughs when Shilpa tells her that she prefers to spend her Friday evenings surrounded by grandparents, veterans, and retirees rather than her own age

For his first birthday after we married, I gave my husband a t-shirt with birds stretched across it in rows.  Under each bird were detailed

A year after I left the military, I was hired by a Fortune 100 company as a Customer Sales Representative. The desk I was assigned

As a writer, I often base my stories on the people I know. But especially the people I loved. I create characters that represent them,

I understand nothing will be normal again, because normalcy—most of it, has left me. The genesis of me is gone. In its place, another one,