Paradise
I have always been restless. When I am Here , There looks better. When I am There , Somewhere Else calls my name. When I have This , I want That . When I look in the mirror or at photographs of myself, I am always disappointed. I remember the past and dream of the world and love and life as I wish they could be. I am a romantic and a spiritual sojourner, the lonely one in the corner in a crowded room. It is my great failing: I am a wanderer traveling west against the spin of a world that rotates east. Note to self: She lived in Paradise, where the streets and stores and neighborhoods all looked the same. To a little girl with dark curly hair and crooked teeth, beauty was another girl, another place. She dreamed about the other side of childhood and pretended to be there. On the playground and in the classroom the kids teased her because they were not able to understand, because they couldn’t see beyond the day around them. Some of them sat with her at lunc...