The Feed

A bruise beneath my ribs. A broken mirror. The seventeenth of March. A barricaded dorm. A man-made cage. A hostage. A window. Snow. A sunrise. My black Kia. An escape. A left turn past my childhood home. Disbelief. A parking garage. A hole in my slipper. Hospital lights. A waiting room. A nurse who coddles me. She has a savior complex. HIPAA is broken. A cop uncomfortable saying the word rape as if he was the one who had to bear its shame. The drive home is long. Too long. Sc

Most of my life has been spent at the mercy of some higher power, spent believing that an all-knowing beingwould damn me for my imperfections. I was taught that evil existedwithin the tenderness of my aching heart. Taught that to question my supposed sinful naturewas an act against God. Taught that my flesh,feminine as she was,smooth and soft,would cause men to stumble. And when they did find themselvestripping over my collarbones,slipping down the curve of my waist,when thei

Something I wrote in college: “Hurt people hurt people.” I want to live in a world where hurt people heal people instead. Artists and hyperactive overthinkers do it best. Give us time and space and we will bleed ink across your scars. Give a writer your sorrows and she will poison the tip of her pen just to protect you. Give an artist your pain and he will start painting. Give it all to them. Because anyone can stare at a sunset and call it beautiful. But creators, inventors,

When I say I want all of the luxuries in life, I am saying I want to be covered in dirt and dipped in a lake. All I want is a few extra seconds in the rain, a few extra seconds of watching the sky drain, a few extra seconds of standing on a mountain, watching my past life close up behind me and the new one unfolding at the highest peak in front of me. I am okay with a few more seconds standing in a hurricane. My wealth is not measured in coins or change. It’s a piggy bank sha

something about new zealand's oceans reminded me that it’s okay to appear peaceful and tame, yet be capable of carrying unmeasurable depth. to carry mysteries so big, yet only offer the quick flash of a whale tail on the surface. to show that beneath a shiny exterior exists answers waiting for discovery. something about the downpours of the rainforest, only a few miles from drought stricken hills, reminded me that even the earth sobs and because it does, everything beneath i