I am from amazing people

I am from family

I am from family gatherings 

and parties

I am from the open land of 

Pennsylvania.

I am from the fields and cornfields

of the farm.

I am from playing hide-n-seek

in the cornfields.

I am from horses and cows on the farm.

I am from riding in the open truck

on the farm.

I am from riding on the back

of cuby, my dad's tractor.

I am from the lake in the summer.

I am from chasing lightning bugs

on summer nights.

I am from camping when there were 

only tents and original pop-ups.

I am from jumping into the hay

from the barns second floor.

I am from the smell of french toast 

on the weekends.

I am from Penny Candy.

I am from 5 and dime stores.

I am from great music on 8-tracks.

I am from original video games.

I am from M-TV and original computers.

I am from all of the wonderful

memories from my childhood, but 

also from everything I have gone

through to get to where I am now.

I am from Italian streets, baked bread with a hard crust and a soft center
I am from a breezy shore, sand and sun, endless days and nights of summer
I am from a thousand heartaches and a hundred tears, searching for a place called home
I am from laughter and joy and sorrow and pain and back again
I am from a town called old fashioned and a city called wild
I am from a long lost time forgotten in memory, too hard to remember, too painful to forget.

Last night, Writers for Recovery made its debut at the Turning Point Center of Central Vermont. The first sessions of writing workshops can be a bit difficult—everyone is nervous, even (and perhaps especially) the leaders. Will people show up? And if they do, will they be willing to jump in and take the risk necessary to make the workshop a success? Knowing it was a spunky, can-do town like Barre should have given us the obvious answers to those questions—which were "yes" on both counts. 

Deb and I co-led the group, and we were just amazed at not only the courage of the writers who created and shared their work on the spot, but what they had to say and the creative ways in which they said it. If this is any indication of how the remaining nine weeks of the workshop will go, we are seriously off to the races! Thanks so much to the writers who came to share their work, and to Bob Purvis, director of Central Vermont Turning Point, for the support needed to make this happen, and for contributing his own wonderful work to the group. And if you know of anyone in Central Vermont who is in recovery or whose life has been affected by addiction, invite them to drop by the Turning Point on Tuesday evenings from 6:30-8. We'll be there for the next nine weeks, and we'd love to have some more writers!

The putrid pink room was softened by the sunlight streaming through the blinds.  Sparsely furnished, the small square space was unadorned except for a television set suspended from the wall in front of the bed, and a clock. The door was closed. Elizabeth was alone.  She lay still beneath the thin cotton blanket trying to grasp a sense of place and time.   

She closed her eyes, but each stubborn minute brought bizarre images. She ticked off things she knew:  her husband had brought her to the hospital the night before; she was in labor, they were expecting their first child.  She remembered a darkened surgical room with faceless silhouettes moving slowly, muffled words, a tiny leg illuminated against the darkness.  And then nothing.  In the sterile putrid pink room, Elizabeth’s hands explored her body.  Her skin was dry, her mouth was parched and her belly soft and empty.  She was hungry.

Morning sounds echoed in the hall outside the room -- silverware, dishes, and people talking quietly.  As she drifted off, Elizabeth soothed herself with visions of her baby, its soft face nestled in the crook of her neck, her husband whispering softly to their son, the two of them rubbing noses.  In a highchair caked with oatmeal, the dog waited patiently for something to fall.  In autumn, Elizabeth would walk through rustling leaves with her daughter, up the path past the barn and circle around to the brook before lunch.  They would pick out books before contented afternoon naps. The nights would be short. 

Suddenly, the sound of something rolling outside her room stirred her.  An ageless woman in blue scrubs burst through the door, and stood expressionless.  Elizabeth searched the stranger’s face for a sign, some indication of what this woman might say, what she was thinking, but the door closed abruptly.  A chill brushed her neck, and she turned away from the door in her bed, drawing the blanket tightly around her shoulders.  Everything takes so long, she thought.   

“Seth if it’s a boy,” but she hadn’t chosen a girl’s name. Elizabeth pulled her heavy body up and turned on the TV.  From the small screen, Leon Russell appeared, jamming on his piano, his long grey hair wild and free. The rotund, joyous backup singers wailed “Emily” and clapped, Russell stomped on the keys.  Elizabeth smiled thinking, “Emily, that’s it, if she is a girl.”     

Again, the rolling sound outside her room; the sun had faded, replaced by a gentle rain.  In the dim fluorescent light, the clock read three o’clock. She heard a tiny cry.  It’s the babies being wheeled in their bassinettes, she bolted up, elated. Elizabeth’s breasts ached and her hospital nightgown was cool and wet.  It must be time, she thought.  Why does everything take so long here? 

Just then, a timid knock on the door; it opened a few inches.  Standing there in rumpled clothes, ashen and unshaven, stood her husband, deep-circled eyes cast to the floor.  It was at that moment that time and reason stopped: she knew there would be no Seth. No Emily. Elizabeth wept a silent, bottomless cry onto her damp nightgown. 

If you need help here is what I can offer. He thought he remembered her faintly saying just before reaching out to hold his hand as they walked; just before, her songs took over his head. But he didn’t mind that they took over his head, she offered a jaunty tune and he liked the way it made the clouds come alive as they walked.

He had been telling her about another woman, a woman he couldn’t get out of his head, a woman whose songs were once lively and funny and smart but years later had turned harsh and scolding. Though she had left him some time ago her demeaning melodies stayed with him. He felt cello like sounds much of the time when he was alone. He missed the songs he had heard when they met. He listened for them when he went out. He wanted them back.    

It didn’t bother him that this new woman knew just what to do. He had hoped she might. She looked like she might. They held hands as they walked and between the squeezing of her hand and the flickering light through the trees her jaunty tune was slowly embedding in his step. It soothed him. He forgot himself. Colors began to shout out and clouds began to whistle.

They came to a secluded clearing. The grass was dry and warm and soft. As they lay side by side kissing she took off her clothes, but wouldn’t, let him take off his. They kissed, one breath, together, over and over again until they were dizzy. The sun had never felt so good. Could it be that the birds were tweeting just for them?

The next morning her song was still with him. When he looked at his face to shave he saw her eyes in his. When he walked she was in his step. Her hips were everywhere he turned. There was no where more important to go that morning, but, to her.

She was still in pajamas when he arrived at her door for breakfast. Her eye-lids were purple-pink, her iris green and brown. Her pupils were large, so large. Within minutes, they were naked in her bed. The cello was gone and the trill of a lively clarinet teased his ears.

Many days passed by. Her songs remained lively, funny and smart. She needed him, but for how long, he thought. He knew it was wrong but he wanted to be sure her songs would not change. He wanted to nail her spirit to a tree. The more he liked her songs the sadder he became. What was her plan he wondered. Would she become mean and leave him, too? The more he tried to hold things still the more her songs began to change. They became stilted with after-thought, with pause for what they might mean. He knew he was causing this but he couldn’t stop. Within a month she had stopped singing and wondered why she was with him at all.

He asked her to his house for dinner and when the conversation had become vacant and still, he brought out a hammer and nails that he wanted to show her. He was ashamed of himself and told her what he had been feeling. She looked surprised and sad and shied away from him. Though it was not a cold evening he lit a fire. Once it had peaked he asked her to place the hammer and nails in the fire. As they burned, he stood looking deep into the fire and with only the crackling of the fire to interrupt the silence, he began to sing, at first in a mumbling sort of way, as though he were speaking in tongues. He rarely sang out loud and didn’t really know how. He sang about the time they met, he sang about the heartache he once felt and the heartache he was beginning to feel again. His song brought tears to her eyes as she understood what had happened between them and why her songs had stopped. She stood close as he sang so she might make out the quiet words. When he sang of his love for her his voice became more secure and clear. She slid off her dress to the floor to inspire him as his voice became louder and louder. At her urging he stood on the chair, and then on the table, the song carried out of him without pause, without reflection; he was perfect in his frailty, perfect in his faults. He could do no wrong, he sang of what he knew to be true.

The next morning as she left for work she held him close and whispered, If you need help, here is what I can offer, and placed his hand on her bosom, kissed him on the cheek and left.

How could he possibly know which of the many songs will remain true?  

Frog and Bunny is what they called one another in high school and still do when they’re together. However, high school was close to fifteen years ago and to Bonnie these names no longer fit.

Frank (or Frog) likes to recreate the old days whenever they happen to meet. Using those names helps him to imagine they’re watching the same inner-movies together as he narrates their past. Bonnie (or Bunny) lets him talk because she can see how his worn-down tattered face lights up when he does.

After years of dead-end jobs, two years ago Bonnie saved enough to buy a five-year old Camry and become a Realtor. She hand waxes her Camry every month and keeps the interior smelling fresh and spotless. She has her picture on-line and in a magazine, too. Her Realtor smile gives no hint of a life before selling real estate or of her run-down two room apartment, or that anyone has ever call her Bunny, but rather it portrays a radiant, youngish, successful woman who wants nothing more than to make your life as grand as hers. Her clients want to think of her as one of their own, that she too believes that appearance and status and sharp looking lawns and shiny cars really do matter. They do not have friends named Frog.

Weekly sales meetings, quarterly sales rallies, and mentorship by her sales-team have groomed Bonnie to meet the sort of people that will make her rich, and Bonnie is fast becoming the sort of person she at first was pretending to be. Status, appearances, and who can help and who can hinder have become the ties that hold her world together. Her constantly ringing phone keeps her in check.

Bonnie’s friendship with Frank has become a strain. She is tired of pretending that she hasn’t changed. The last time she and Frank met on the sidewalk outside city hall and he called her Bunny she was reminded of how self-conscious she is of her large breasts. She had been considering having them reduced and formed. She is not Bunny, she is Bonnie and Bonnie is on her way to success.

The last time they met Frank was enjoying his morning wandering around chatting with most anyone that happened by his view. He was in love with the morning, the sidewalk, the people, and the mysteries that were unfolding with each step he took. He was hurt by Bunny’s discomfort when they met outside city hall. He felt bad for her. It reminded him of something he had read years ago; be careful who you pretend to be because in the end that’s who you are.”

Frank was glad he had a past. Frank and Frog were woven together. The name Frog gave weight to his step. Even though the town was filling in with new people it didn’t occur to him to change to fit their image of success. He told them his name was Frog. He worked hard and he got paid a fair wage, simple as that. He liked his rowdy ways. He owed a smile to no one and could care less if his truck smelled nice. He kept his word, and he kept his past alive. He wasn’t changing for no one. He watched the world pass by. He had hoped Bunny would be his friend forever but lately she has been acting like a real dipshit.     

I wake up in darkness. I see the moon above me, and I wonder if the man inside can see me, if he’s watching me lying in the dark in that hopeless argyle dress. I’m lying in thorns, and my body has crushed and destroyed all the roses that desperately grow in the cold. My hair has grown gray, my shoes are nowhere to be found, and it doesn’t seem as though I have the strength to move, but I do.

I crawl out of that frightening hole, an ode to to starting from scratch, yet again. Hopeless, undetermined, screaming and crying for someone to help me. I wonder if anyone is close, anybody to pick me up and carry me out of these woods--away from the bare branches of trees, away from the fox and the rats and all the dead leaves. There is nothing but darkness, not only in the sky  but everywhere around me. No one can save me here. Only I can save me, but I don’t think I can. I think “this is it, this is the end.” I cannot crawl out of this.

I hear a gentle crackle as I lie there wallowing,. I sit up, frightened. There is a firefly buzzing around me. A lightning bug chiming in, whispering “follow me, follow me.” Suddenly, I am able to move. The stars get brighter, and as I inch closer to this beautiful creature it moves farther away, and I swear it is humming the song I love most in this worlds, “A Few of My Favorite Things.”

I close my eyes and follow the song, the raindrops on roses, and I don’t look behind me. Fear gets smaller, but it doesn’t disappear, it changes its form and slowly but surely…

There is nothing but courage leading me away.

(Photo copyright 2002 Gary Miller)

I promise

To paint the tree.

And with each branch, an expression of hope, determination. With a meaning in every molecule--success, happiness, freedom, a point…

This is a promise, an oath, a vow made to that scared little girl, who barely says a word and thinks too much. She fantacizes, obsesses of a life resembling lysergic acid diethylamide. She’s standing in the cold, shaking in her boots, dreaming of so much more than hiding under the covers, with a flashlight and a Nancy Drew book and sneaking cigarettes in the garage. Stealing ginseng tablets, doing cartwheels in the hallway. Go little girl, buy real estate in Whoville, design a dress for Briar Rose, bury a time capsule on Penny Lane and land your feet on East 68th Street. You would rather read every line from the script of the Shadowboxer, but you won’t. Hold on tight.

For I won’t follow through with my promises for twenty more years.

A promise I made, and I promise I’ll keep.

I will finish painting someday.

Photo copyright 2015 Gary Miller

I promise I will not let you down, I promise things will get better, I promise this will be the last time, and I promise I will get help: all promises I have made and all I have broken. As an addict I have made and broken so many that the word is not only meaningless to the people I have made them to but to me as well. I can't count the amount of times I have made one knowing that as the words were coming off my lips I had no intention of keeping them. This is not the way I was taught to treat people, things were not always this way but things happen and people change. I know I was sick and that my illness had taken complete  control of everything in my life, but I knew that the only way to get better was to face it and I was not ready at the time. I hate to use the sayings, but it is true " we are only as sick as our secrets." It was not until I lost everything and was left with only my secrets that I truly found out how sick I was. 
 It was then that I made a promise to my self. I was going to stop the pain. No longer would I hide at the bottom a bottle, be it booze or pills I was done. I know the dangers of dark secrets mixed with sobriety, I had tried it before and failed. This time I will no longer let my past control my life. I found the help I needed but I was told what I already knew, this was not going to be easy. Sobriety would have to come first mixed with some tools to deal with the past. It was slow at first and looking like it was all going to fail again. I had seen a flyer for a writing class and mentioned it in a session and was asked if I thought I could write about what I could not talk about. I made a promise that day to go outside my comfort zone and write about my experiences. It was then that I found out that by giving away my story I released its hold over me.     
 

"Something tough that made me stronger" is how I described my electro-shock treatments to my doctor last summer. The first and second treatment barely made a dent on my depression. The third, however, is a different story. I later found out it was a new wave-length they were trying out. Though I was only under its spell for a minute or so I will never forget my dream.

I stood in the middle of a green meadow about the size of two football fields. There were magnificent oak trees on three side of the meadow. They had large limbs swooning down to the ground. Behind the trees was a dark forest. On the forth side of the meadow was a stretch of blue water that went on forever. I stood in the meadow and watched as the clouds slowly billowed into human forms. They represented reenactments of my past incriminations. Almost over-head was my mother and beyond her toward the trees was my ex-wife, past that my father, brother, and a whole family that I had known from my home town. All of them making me feel small and inept. The wind shifted and they were moving toward me. I moved toward the forest to get away but I could see something moving behind the trees, in the dark, something black; something heavy. It seemed to be waiting for me. I ran towards the water. As I walked through the muddy shore toward the water my foot prints quickly filled with something red-black, thick, and gooey. I bent down and looked at it more closely. I touched it. It felt and smelled like blood. Off in the distance I saw a man standing on the water. I was called to him. I was scared to be out in the open water because of what the clouds might do but there was something calming about the way he stood that gave me courage. I walked further out into the water knowing with each foot step I was stirring up blood. I began to swim. The water was warm and salty. I did the breast-stroke and kept my eyes on the man. At times he seemed close and then seemed further away. I tried to keep him still by locking onto him with my eyes. I didn’t want to think of the clouds. And then I was with him. He had sunk down into the water so we were just two heads about two yards apart bobbing in the water, slowing moving our feet and arms to keep afloat. His eyes were soft and loving. He looked like my father might have looked when he was young. He said, without speaking out loud; that I shouldn’t be afraid, that he and I were one of the many sons of God. We fell into one another’s eyes. He began to look like me. There was trust between us. He was not a man, he was something else, he was sometimes me, and sometimes not. I looked up at the clouds and they too felt kind and caring. I stopped moving my feet and arms and I did not sink. I began to move further away from shore, out into the horizon. I looked back and the shore was gone. He was gone. There was only horizon and clouds. The clouds and water and blood held me afloat. I was standing on water and I was not afraid. I heard a voice coming from within. I am one of the many sons of God, it clearly said. Just then I opened my eyes and my doctor was looking down on me.

            The next week in his office my doctor and I discussed my progress. I told him I wouldn’t recommend electro-shock to anyone, but that I’d always be grateful for the experience I had. My depression had not lifted, but it had changed.

If I listen and pay attention the clouds will whisper back what I whisper to them. I am not afraid of the blood that came before me. It will hold me up if I let it. I am adrift in the sea of God, and there is nothing I can do about it. What is tough will make me stronger.

Spring is coming, and with it, we are pleased to announce a new series of four ten-week Writers for Recovery Workshops, which will take place at community recovery centers and correctional facilities in central and northern Vermont.

Gary will lead the first workshop, which kicks off on Tuesday, April 21, at the Turning Point Center in Barre Vermont. Starting in early May, he will also lead workshops at the Calendonia Community Work Camp in St. Johnsbury and the  Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport. Starting in June, Bess O'Brien will lead a 10-week workshop at the Kingdom Recovery Center in St. Johnsbury. 

Writers for Recovery Workshops are open to anyone age 18 or over who is in recovery or whose family has been affected by addiction. The workshops use writing to address issues of addiction and recovery, but no previous writing experience is necessary.

Funding for these new workshops has been generously provided by the Vermont Department of Corrections. Writers for Recovery would like to thank Brian McLaughlin of the Department of Corrections for making our presence in the correctional facilities possible, and for his support of our mission. We'd also like to thank Bob Purvis and Kristen LaFond of the Turning Point Center of Central Vermont and Nancy Bassett and Cindy Nutting of the Kingdom Recovery Center for providing space and logistical support.

Looking back I

can’t believe it took

me this long to change.

I was just a scared

lonely raw-nerved tumble

weed. Tangled in

resistance and resentments.

on day 365 of

sobriety, my true form

finally emerged. I

was let in on the secret.

Oh, how I’ve been

so blind. This is

What they were all

talking about, but

completely unable

to explain.

I know all this

pain, misery, and

suffering was the

cloak of someone’s

dark humor

I laugh with them—

now, as my spirit

soars over all the

pointless physical bodies

perfection is a void

blank space.

A proud canvas

exploding with

anticipation.

I hate you. I know hate is a strong word,

but I think I really hate you.

I hate the eway you look,

I hate the way you smell.

I hate the sound of your voice, and I

hate the words you say.

I see you walk in the room, and my

heart begins to race. It’s fight or flight,

and I always remove myself. I’m afraid

that I will hurt you one day if I don’t

tell you how I really feel.

I see you waiting to hurt someone. If they

have something good to say, you will

explain to them how they are wrong. If

someone is looking really good and confident,

you will show them something that’s wrong.

You will point out the negative in

any situation. It’s as if the world is

against you, and everyone should feel bad

for you. I have watched this for so

long that I actually have a physical

reaction as soon as I see you.

I have wondered why I get so upset

when I am around you. That there must be

something wrong with me. I mean, that’s

what you always told me my whole childhood,

That there was always something wrong with

me. I was too stupid, too ugly, too slow,

Too annoying, anything negative you could think

of, you said to me. Everyone else liked you,

or pretended to like you, because if they

didn’t then you would hurt them too.

All the abuse I took from you took a

toll on me. I watched you use drugs, and

didn’t understand, until I tried them.

They made me feel better, like I was

smarter, prettier, cooler, at least for a little

while. Then drugs just helped me not feel,

And I forgot how to live. I began to

hate everyone. If your life was good,

I would point our what was wrong.

So when I look at you, I was looking

at me, and I didn’t like that I hated

It so much that I had to get away

from the world. But, I got clean and

sober, and I now know that I am not

a bad person. I have learned to forgive myself,

So now I can forgive you. I just hope

that one day you will find what I

found, because I now know that I

love you.

Christ, I don't know. Maybe I'm not living with my mom. 

I have an incredibly difficult time hoping for positive things.

Problem is I seem to perversely enjoy having this "martyr, I'm so, like misunderstood" and stuff that I keep orchestrating failures while raising the stakes each time.

That way I can say "look, everybody, see how this whole life and, like, doing shit is not for me?"

A promise I made and a promise I kept, is how I explained what became of me to my therapist. It started when I was five or so. After watching Peter Pan on TV I awoke with the distinct feeling that I could fly. I stood up blurry-eyed on my bed and put my arms out as Peter would do, fully expecting to lift right up off the ground. When it didn’t happen I didn’t tell anyone, I felt silly, it was silly. I kept the disappointment to myself.

All though my teens I continued to dream of flying. In the early years I would fly to the tops of trees but later my flying became more nuanced, more realistic, you might say. I would only fly about shoulder high or head high. My legs would lift off the ground tilting my body with my stomach and chest pointing downward. I regulated the distance from the floor to my stomach and chest with a pressure that came from calm quick breaths, the calmer I became the higher I could go, but never so high that the pressure would become too thin from my body to the ground.

Now that I’ve retired and all my wives are gone I find myself, living the dream, as my youngest son is prone to say. I get up early and have a light breakfast then I walk the block and a half to the sandy shores of St. Petersburg where I grew up. The silence of the long stretch of sandy beach is interrupted only by the soothing sounds of rolling waves and the occasional caw from seagulls fighting over washed up scraps of food. I leave my sandals, shirt, and towel folded nice and neat on the shore and put on lots of sun screen and a beat up pair of sun glasses with an attached nose guard that I found on a bench one day and then I swim far enough out that I won’t be bothered by the troubled world of the shore. And my legs lift up and my body tilts, but instead of flying I float, my stomach and chest pointing upward toward the sky and just as when I was young I regulate myself by calm quick breaths keeping pressure in my stomach and chest. I don’t have to move a finger or a foot. I am free. My ears are underwater and I watch the clouds and feel the pull both downward and upward. I float in my breaths and float in the current and float in the sky. I can do this for hours, both in the morning and again at sunset. Just over head the pelicans and I are one as they float home to roost.  

I tell my therapist I’m happy but she seems to think I’m depressed. I’ve come full circle. It’s a promise I made and a promise I kept. There’s something about flying and floating and dreaming that makes me whole. I suppose it’s because there is nothing rational about it that makes me love it so.

Writing this is like floating, like flying, like dreaming. I row around in my head and time disappears. I am absorbed. Anything can happen. I go backward in time, forward in time. Sometimes I’m just right here, right now. I can regulate my words by my breathing. I feel myself beginning to float. My legs lift off the ground. I am chest high, body facing downward. The pressure in my chest, in my stomach, in my writing, keeps me afloat.  

Otis was sitting there,

stooped over his

clasped bony hands,

looking absolutely

exhausted and bewildered.

He was an old old

old black man born and

raised in Louisiana.

His long white beard

was brightly lit,

almost neon against

his coal skin tone.

It was obvious

he had see a lot

in his day, but

What he just confessed

seemed to toss up and

toss around that

crawfish soul like

confetti.

Now it was on me.

My responsibility

to explain he was

wrong. Thank God.

I’m learning that if I need help that I need to ask for it, not just wait and assume that others “know” that I need help. Even though ESP is an interesting concept, I’ve never actually met someone who has it. Also, keep it simple. I tend to talk too much and get totally sidetracked, frequently forgetting what the hell I was asking in the first place. Ask someone who hopefully has experience with a solution to your problem, and if they don’t, maybe they know someone who does. I also pray for guidance, seeing my higher power has never let me down. I can ask my higher power to move a mountain, but I will frequently be handed a shovel, and don’t know where to find the shovel unless I ask someone, or several, someones, where it is. When someone asks me for help and I am able to share a solution that works for me, I am very grateful, for it reminds me that overcoming the problem not only helped me, but others as well. So when I need help, I ask for it, hopefully. Until I let go of my ego and realize that asking for help is the easier, right thing to do, then I will suffer, and suffering is not how I want to live my life today.

I was shaking, he was smiling
My tears, my fears
Entertaining to His image
He left me in the parking lot
With no shoes, without my glasses
And those broken bottles,
I couldn't catch them
And obviously, I stepped on them, 
But truthfully, 
The blood dripping from my toes
Led the next poor, pathetic girl
All the way home

The fact was that all that warm weather and sunshine was making her feel just awful. Lounging by Bongos, her voluptuous figure fit with a simply clad bikini. Sipping fancy drinks with stupid names and even dumber displays teetering off the glass rim.

Sally had just scored a big sale at her fresh new job. The height of luxury, most thought. Then why was she still such a fucking wreck inside?

This was supposed to be it, she thought as she glanced at her novel new wedding ring—the one with the ridiculously large stone. But maybe this wasn’t it at all.

The fact was that all that warm weather and sunshine was making her feel just awful. She used to love being in the sunshine, feeling its warmth, smelling the grass, hearing the birds. Sitting on the porch, waving to the neighbors, reading the paper without a care in the world.

Then she went to the doctor’s, unsure of what to think. The freckle had gotten bigger, no longer round, color darkening. She tried to ignore it, but it only got worse. After a simple biopsy, her fears became reality. No amount of sunblock or shade could make her feel safe. Who would have thought that a simple freckle could destroy her entire world?

The sun was like a demon, waiting to burn her at first touch, the birds laughing and all the grass stinking its putrid smell. Back into the house she goes, draws the shades, gets back into bed, pillow over her head, as to not hear a sound.