The year I move into my own, away from those who bring the rain and hold on tight to the sun instead. The year I learn to love myself....

Pedernales River State Park | Texas A dappling of light and dark gives an illusion of softness to the hard limestone bed underneath.  ...

Tucked here in my chair of regret, of hopes and aspirations. You see, I know what it’s like to hate yourself. And to love yourself. To be...

If I had a secret code, it would be one of eagles and roosters. Of stars nesting among threads of blackness. The simmer of an arced flame...

The woman I am is buried somewhere inside. I see her on dirt roads and highways unending. Cross-country in the desert, high on the...

and I don't profess to be. That title belongs to others. Me? I am somewhere between horse girl and wanderer. Between stainless steel and...

(as published in the Winter 2024 Cenizo Journal) This is the country they call life. A place where you can be yourself - unencumbered by...

Sometimes I drive until I find myself anew. Casing the southwest as if the dirt will scrub me clean. To the desert and mountains of New...

We follow the dusty, white caliche toward water downshifting along the way, driving slowly through the bends and curves of the road. The...

The Moon climbs above the mesa. The Milky Way spreads her wings. The Big dipper shifts in the sky, and the Sun chases away the dark. I...

I am my best in a spiral notebook, wrinkled and blowing pages. In the solitude shared with animals, that silent language we all speak. ...

I didn’t always love myself, you see? It’s not enough to simply show up. It takes purpose to shed the paradigms that others place upon...

(as published in the Fall 2023 Cenizo Journal) This is a story of a horse and the girl who loves him. I lie back on the picnic bench and...

So I fill in the blanks. It is, and I am... and every now and then it will be. I ask myself that every day. When the power goes out, the...

We drive until the pavement ends and then drive some more through an old mining town turned touristville where dilapidated cabins mingle...

The big dipper pours a mixture of sludge and hope onto the mesa and in the glow my headlights a fox runs across the highway I am...

I'm afraid the rainy season has come and gone and there is nothing left now but to move into cold and dry and sit, listening for that...

At night the ghosts come out. They roam the corridors of my mind and wander the graveyard of my soul - the parts I thought I’d put to bed...

(as published in the Spring 2023 Cenizo Journal) This morning, when I went outside as I always do to greet the day and smell the desert,...

I lay back on the picnic bench and dip one toe into the sand. The wind rustles through the strings of my cut off shorts and I can just...