A.B. Shepherd

I felt like I was living two lives. One in the present and one in the past.

But who is ever fair in an argument?

Sometimes careful just isn__ good enough.

Things are not as they seem. You do not understand. There is no escape. This is all there is._ I had never seen eyes filled with so much sadness.

I sometimes wish I could spontaneously combust. Burn until nothing but ash is left, to be washed away by the wind and the rain.

She brushed the tears from their faces and sang them a melancholy lullaby. Her obvious devotion to her daughters pulled at my heart strings, making my chest ache with longing for my own mother.

...I__ tired of everyone looking at me with pity in their eyes. I__ tired of feeling like my heart is being ripped out of my chest every damned day. I__ tired of waking up in the morning, and then remembering...

Twenty years old and this man stood ready to take on the world, all for the sake of our unborn baby.

What kind of miracle ripped out your heart, and left you breathing?

Never stop dreaming or reading.

I no longer knew what was real and what wasn__. The lines between reality and delusion had become so blurred.

In a spirit of hope and new beginnings, we linked arms like a couple of kids. Pushing aside sad thoughts, we strode off into our future.

I wanted to soothe and comfort her, the way she had comforted her daughters.

I felt like I was an arrow, pulled back and ready to be launched into something big.

I wiggled and squirmed in my seat as if I had ants in my pants, but in reality it was merely impatience.

The poker fell from my trembling hands as my entire body shook with reaction. I fell to my knees, pressed my hands to my face and began to sob. What had I done?

Nausea and panic rose in my throat. I had killed a man.

Sitting outside on a dark night, under the stars, invites confidences amongst people of all ages, and all walks of life. It invokes an intimacy you don__ find under most other circumstances.