I felt angry, frustrated. I felt I didn't belong, not in my church, not in my home, not in my skin. Amidst the chaos, i felt alone, in need of a friend instead of a sister, someone detached from my world. The "woman's role" theory disgusted me. I would soon be a woman, and I knew I could never perform as expected. I was tired of my mom's submission to her religion, to her husband's sick quest for an heir, to his abuse. I was sick of my dad, of reaching for him as he fell farther away from us and into the arms of Johnnie WB.

She is angle. I am curve. Together, we are geometric sculpture, and we make perfect sense.

Too much to take in, too much to purge. Why must every memory, once sweet, dead end in such ugliness?

I hide hurt behind a fake smile. I wear it all the time. Everyone says how I always look so cheerful. Shows what they know I guess.

Paradise A concept embraced by almost every culture. A land of peace and harmony. Some say it doesn't belong to the earth, that there is no Shangri-la, no utopian wilderness for the living.

The universe is a big place. If I was lost up there, how would you ever find me

Sometimes you're traveling a highway, the only road you've ever known and wham! A semi comes from nowhere and rolls right over you. Sometimes you dont wake up. But if you happen to you know things will never be the same. Sometimes that's not so bad. Sometimes lives instersect, no rhyme, no reason, except, perhaps, for a passing semi.