It does not matter how much makeup one cakes on, how much money one spends on one’s wardrobe, how one does their hair, or how much Peaches and Cream scented moisturizing lotion one uses, nothing can ever cover up the stain of a publicly known mistake in a small town. I am a living testimony […]

As I stepped past the Egyptian guard at the entrance I was not greeted by the golden chambers I had expected, but a dank, dark tunnel that smelled of rot and decay. Before me climbed the way to Pharaoh Khufu’s ancient burial place, yet this did not seem a tomb fit for a king. My […]

Far away, perhaps, far enough that it never seemed important enough to people on this side of the Atlantic a nation nestled in the depths of Eastern Europe.  When Eastern Europe is mentioned, usually the first thoughts evoked are of the former USSR, heavy accents, Cold War and a whole other world fairly new to […]

Lu was so tiny, so much smaller than I expected. She lay virtually motioness in a small bed with a pink comforter. Her veins stood out from beneath her pale white skin and it was all I could do to keep from staring. Everything about her looked breakable. But she turned her head and greeted […]

“AHHHHHH!” I screamed into the phone. “Ahhhhhh!” she replied on the other side, “Oh my gosh! Really?” “Yes, really,” I confirmed. I jumped up and down with my cell phone still in my hand and I could feel that she was doing the same thing on the other side. Hi, my name is Emily. You […]

Hardly a week into my junior year and I had already passed out on pills during a lecture. Although no charges were filed, I had been arrested a year earlier. One would think that this experience would change my self-destructive behaviors. Instead one year later I sat in a new classroom but in the same […]