Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear.

Alone everything changes. Some might call it distorted reality but it's exactly the place I need to be.

THE BAD THING ABOUT FEAR Is it requires a reaction. Some hide. Some cry. But, like a dog condemned to a walled yard with no hope of escape or affection, some learn to bite.

Starving for a high, a place to hang out inside my own head. Starving for touch. Pain, even. A way to feel. I need to feel.

One Time, One Day between Davie and Roberta , I asked my mom why she persisted, kept on having baby after baby, She looked at me, at a spot between my eyes, blinking like I had suddenly fallen crazy. She paused before answering as if to confide would legitimize my fears. She drew a deep breath, leaned against the chair. I touched her hand and I thought she might cry. Instead she put baby Davie in my arms Pattyn, she said, it's a woman's role. I decided if it was my role, I'd rather disappear.

Light That's how I feel- like the winter-fringed breeze might scoop me up into its wings, fly away with me trapped in its feathered embrace. I am a snowflake. A wisp of eiderdown, liberated from gravity. My body is light. Ephemeral. My head is light. I want to sway beneath the weight of air, dizzy with thought. Light filters through my closed eyelids. The sun, chasing shadows, tells me I'm not afloat in dreams.

And this is a kiss like none before, a kiss that could overcome the dark of deep space night. It's a falling star, flame, ice. It's pure as water from a snow-fed mountain spring. This is what you dream a kiss to be. To have a kiss just like this each and every day! How satisfying life would be.