Chapter VIII: She held out a box cutter. “Take this. Just in case.” The darkened St. Roch neighborhood was no place to walk without protection.
Chapter VII: It was mid-January and I had returned to familiar territory: jobless and scrambling to put together enough income to make it another month.
Martin Manley killed himself. This in and of itself isn't so unique. Thousands of suicides happen without much notice. What makes his suicide bizarre is that he created a website to explain his reasons for his actions.
Suicide is an option. It’s not the best option. It’s not even a good option, but it persists as an option and for some of us, that immutable fact colors all of our experiences, past, present and future.
In the era of constant connection, how do some remain invisible? Like most writers, artists and non-hunks/babes of the world, I was largely anonymous in my teen years. I had my friends, my groups and my failed attempts at finding love that inevitably led to heartache, but while I was a bit higher profile than … Continue reading Invisible
We don't talk about these things. When I was in high school, my brother helped me realize something about myself that was fairly obvious, something that I knew but didn't know. I was depressed. Clinically. My brother used to host a Bible Study in our basement for guys our age, high school, where the discussion … Continue reading SAD
Some stories are funny when they happen. Some stories require distance before the underlying humor can be obvious. And then there are stories that are too dark to ever really be funny. I'm not sure if this next story falls into the second or the third category, but I'm going to tell it here and … Continue reading The Worst Date
It’s strange these days, the way we talk about death – like everybody saw it coming – now that we’re old and calm Some of us pray, and others of us, when we clasp our hands, it’s around a bottle All of us muttering until it grows silent And not that soft, churning buzz we … Continue reading Silent Silence
