Lying in a steaming bath-tub, water lapped against my naked body. The pressure of the clear liquid surrounding me made the bruises on my hips ache, the heat made my head foggier than a dock at sunrise. This was the twenty-seventh time, yet I was still with him. I sunk…

From Georgia to Germany to South Korea to Vietnam to Saudi Arabia, it was a love where distance was irrelevant.

I was born January 18, 1974, in Spokane (now Spokane Valley), Washington. I suppose that at the beginning I had a fairly normal toddlerhood, meaning I grew, I learned, I tried to get into trouble and all that.

My parents had no idea anything was wrong with me when I was born in 1984 in Singapore. In fact, I seemed perfectly normal until about age four. That’s when I began walking on my toes with a sort of limp, as if I were to topple over at any…

I was born July 22, 1996 in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. I grew up feeling like an only child, as my siblings were much older. My relationship with my siblings was good, but I didn’t see them very much. And for that reason, my parents were my best friends. They…

On March 16th, 1993, I was born and became another inconvenience to add to my parents’ list. My father left my hometown of Harrison, Arkansas when I was still a baby and never came back to us, and my mother’s on-again-off-again relationship with drugs eventually had me living with my…

Quirky and awkward. That’s how most people saw me in middle school and high school. I was the big kid with clumsiness in his DNA, who spent most of his time in front of the TV playing video games. But the people who made fun of me didn’t realize why…

Like some girls do, I used to dream of my marriage. On this day, I imagined myself in a white dress, surrounded by the people I love. I would fix my gaze on that of my dear and tender. This man — tall, slender, and a young, beautiful complexion of…

My life began in 1967 in Long Island, New York. My dad was always in my peripheral vision, but as a busy musician, he never really stayed long enough for me or my older sister to get to know him well until I was a teenager. I spent the majority…