I'm the girl who cries when no one is watching, not because I'm in pain, but I because I don't know what else to do. I hate everyone yet I love them, so I guess I'm confused. Sometimes I prefer to be alone, but I don't like feeling lonely. I stay infatuated, but I fear the word love. If life was simple it would be all goodie kid. I'm moody, and I when I'm in like with someone, I accidentally push them away. But I mean hey that's just who I am. I wouldn't have it any way else.

I have 4 children now. 3 boys and a girl. my baby girl is 2. I am still in DC in the same place working on moving forward. I just started working a job teaching about 3 months ago. Still in the same relationship for the last 8 years. Never married. Silly to me but I am not feeling forever. Working on dreams coming to fruition. Still doing photography.

I am not a violent man. I like to believe that my peaceful nature comes from the high moral values I possess, but I have to admit that being a natural coward helps a lot as well. Whatever the case may be, in my short thirty-one years I almost always managed to avoid violent acts; those directed at me and those I chose not to direct at others.

There are precious few things that really tick me off; bike/motorcycle riders without helmets, people who fail to use their directional signals, people who tailgate, people constantly talking on their cell phones in the car, grocery store line, at the bank, etc., sneezing w/o cover one's mouth, talking with one's mouth full, and people who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. Ok, now you know way more about me than most anyone else in the world. Am I too sensitive? Probably....Again, I'm incapable of living with anyone because of these issues. Oh well, fuck them!

When I was 7 years old I arrived home from school to my mother telling me, my 9 year old brother and 3 year old sister to get into the car. We had no idea what was going on. My 11-year-old brother stood in the doorway telling my mother that she was wrong for leaving and he refused to join her; so she left him.
When my father came home from work expecting his family at home and his dinner ready he only had his son waiting for him. Eventually my younger sister went to live with my dad.
When I was young I hated to read. If I had a book report due, I would cheat. I remember when I first - forced myself to read -. I wanted men to think that I was smart so when I went to the health club, I would read the business section of the newspaper hope to impress. I had no idea what I was reading about at first. One day I actually enjoyed reading and it did not have anything to do with impressing anyone.
I love books - they are my friends. I discovered that I like to read about life, self-improvement, government and politics.

There are approximately 150 Freedom Writer Teachers that come from every state within the United States and from some provinces of Canada; and I am one of them. I am the sixth and the youngest child in my family. I have always been the adventurous one in the family, and in my community and although I followed the road of others I tried to blaze new trails. Does this make me a dreamer? Yes, I am a dreamer. If you can see it when no one else sees it, then you will probably believe it when no one else will. I went to a newly integrated high school, different from my brothers and sisters for my last two years of high school. I went to a college that was different than the ones that my siblings attended as well. My undergraduate degree is in business administration, which was also new to our family. I have often been called the Jackie Robinson of my family. But today, I work in the field of education where I help students of all races to drink from
the cup of knowledge to its depth.

Father out to work, father not home, father says tickle me and then you go to bed. Father out beyond the world, where is it that you see? I know the halls of old hotels under the stars of ballroom chandeliers where you stand at attention in your uniform. You stand and think of the mortgage. Father, farther out of my life, I remember the smell when you took off those black shoes, the pointed ones that made it look like the big toe should have sprouted from the middle of your foot. The ironing board room would smell like your boredom, your fear, your cramped smile at hotel guests; the nod of your head so they may not hear your accent and always ask where you are from. I would have to leave the room because there was too much noise from those shoes. The din of dishes clanking and people running down those narrow corridors all heat, all sweat, all cursing until stepping again into the ballroom where you would carefully fold that blue piece of paper and place it in your inside pocket.

They were tearing buildings down then, and we would go and load the trunk of the car with another load of bricks. You built terraced gardens that matched the shape of hotel chandeliers. And oh Father, Father out, you never want to go for walks in the wood because you say you've walked many times around the world in ballrooms, kitchens. I only wish I had a chair that could soften all those days, because when you come to visit you only talk about your days before that maze of mortgages, dishes and wiping up after those who forgot to say Thanks. And before I forget, let me wipe the cup you have drunk from and say Thank you. I don't know anyone who could have done a better job.

Richard Ballon

Accidental Affair

At the top of a brutal hill is the most amazing tree. The climb up to it will never fail to incite groans and complaints, but the destination is well worth the journey. The massive trunk roots itself near the summit, but one mighty branch has succumbed to the seductive pull of gravity and drapes low over the grassy slope. Nearly as long as the tree is tall, the branch sways easy like nature’s hammock. Each end curves into seemingly sculpted seats, with just enough distance between them for two friends to recline, feet to feet, for hours. At the end farthest from the trunk, one foot is best kept on the ground so that the branch may be rocked on an imagined breeze. While the branch swings slowly, the side near the trunk invites a certain settling in, an accepting of the inevitable allure of motion and conversation. The utter peace in this simple pleasure is enough to convince even the most hardened atheist that the tree is a throwback to Eden. But like Eden, the tree exists in a larger context, with rules and boundaries and a natural order. An end for each person, the way nature designed it; the safest way. Yet, the trunk side allows such rules to be broken, for it is not as movable as the far end. It is sturdy, stable enough for two. If one climbs a bit higher, there is a perfect groove in which to sit, tightly tucked against whoever was already there. A close fit, intimate even, made precarious by the fact that feet do not touch the ground. The instability necessitates the holding of hands, of bodies. It cannot be avoided.
There really needs to be a sign, warning of this danger.

Michelle Denis

LAPIS LAZULI
I dreamed of making love with the artist-priest on the altar. The
energy of it expanded beyond the image. Say you have a small balloon
filled with pigment of pure brilliant lapis lazuli. The powdery
content is enough to tint many tubes of oil paint, to paint many
pictures of sky and sea and jeweled robes of high priestesses. And
say the balloon bursts and the powdered pigment explodes out over

everything. Now there is pyrite specked ultramarine everywhere — in

your garden, in your studio, on kitchen counters, your hair, the bath,

in your children's clothes, everywhere.
That's what happened to me with that sexual fantasy. It had

percolated up to a spiritual confluence which permeated my life. I
felt it in the clay I was sculpting, I felt it when I read my children
stories at night, I felt it when I made love with my husband.
My lawyer husband did not feel it. When I shined ultramarine he
became angry and recoiled from it, afraid, and jealous. He began
fighting it and I became afraid to show my blue spirit color. The

pain in my heart was pressure. I've heard it said that "God is
pressure." I think that means the Divine element of our being is

always pressing in on our forgetfulness of it. I remember a Superman
episode when he took a piece of coal and, wrapping his hand around it,
pressed so hard that it became a diamond. The facets of the diamond
of my spirit were being cut. The cosmos was calling; it was time to
let the light that lives within me shine.

Hannah Rappaport

I am exhausted. I can't move, think or be anything I originally intended to be. Yet, I function -- cook, clean, take care of kids, work, grade papers, wash clothes, pay bills. To others I seem fine. To me, others seem exhausted, half-alive, acting -- like me -- as if they can move at the pace it takes to prove that they are fine. I could blame it on my divorce, but the only thing I remember about the divorce was that I felt a sadness, betrayed and anger so deep I still know the day of the year and the name of street where I felt it. Now feeling is a luxury, a bauble I locked in some vault in my distant past. But, I forgot the combination or where the vault can be found. Doesn't everyone know that it takes energy to wake u, put on shoes, make up, and blow dry your hair? So, I don't do it. I grab the same black pants, wine-colored shirt and run of to work. Thank God I remember what to say --how to sound intelligent. I hear someone lecture and she sounds like me. It is me. Then I take a long hard sigh. The students stare at me. They are attentive. I've broken the monotony of the brilliant words. The one good thing about exhaustion... sleep. Insomniac no more. When I put my head on the pillow I sleep the hard, dark sleep of one who has been shot in the head.
B.C.