After 16 years in the classroom, I'm not signing my teaching contract. A friend's sudden death at 44 made me realize: when do you give up safe and comfortable to do what you were created to do?
Day 24: Stillness of a Moment – A Love Song That Could Be Prayer
Will I ever recover or move beyond your face, your smile, your eyes... In the stillness of a moment with you, the scars are ever-reminding me. Recorded with Bob Cowherd—but the "you" might surprise you.
Day 23: Changing Faces – Becoming More Like My Mother
What is that face in the looking glass? It's familiar, I know, but more like you than what I remember from before... Where did you study the love you embody? A daughter seeing her mother's wisdom reflected in her own changing face.
Day 22: Barely Breathing – When Winter Winds Wake You Up
The winter winds whip in and out of my cracked screen door... So alive in spite of me. Everything I haven't touched yet, touches me, knows me if only for an instant. A dark season poem about feeling alive despite depression.
Day 21: That Street – Where I Fell in Love Over and Over
That street could tell so many stories... And each time my foot touched the pavement on that street, my heart beat once for him, twice for his touch, thrice for his kiss. A middle school memory of first love on one special street.
Day 20: Dividing the Shore – Where Blue Meets Blue
Goleta Beach in the summer of 2006... Divided by the horizon, only not so divided, where blue of water meets blue of sky – limitless. A California beach meditation on boundaries and infinity.
Day 19: Premonition – Death Climbing the Spiral Stair
Premonition climbs the spiraling stair, she passes me on my way down... I know my death will follow when she passes me the next time. A haunting poem using visual effects to create a spiraling staircase of doom.
Dreams That Chase You: How Puerto Rico Called Me Home to Myself
Some dreams don't wait for permission—they chase you across oceans and through heartbreak. This is how Puerto Rico became the backdrop for rediscovering who I was meant to be.
Day 18: The Night Remembers – A Song for the Sleepless
They said that I deserved a man who wouldn't make me cry, but I cry more in the absence of you... The night remembers everything that I spend my days forgetting. A song-poem about missing someone who was bad for you.
Day 17: A Different Kind of Fairy Tale – When God Calls Rapunzel
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair to me... 'Twas worse than a witch who put you here, your own sin the demon, the condemner. A spiritual retelling where God pursues the trapped princess.
Writer's Growth 