I was unable to breathe from laughing so hard. Moments prior, we had stumbled through the downtown streets of Miami in the comfortable February warmth, back to our separate hotel rooms.

Only we didn't go into our separate rooms.

For a brief second after you entered yours, I expected you to bid me good night and to find myself longingly staring at a closed door. Instead, the door opened wider b...

Sweat dripped down my forehead as I tried to conceive what lay in front of me. I had been hiking through the humid hell of this jungle for the last 48 hours. According to my directions, I should be finally nearing the Temple of Awakening. And after two days of dealing with the unrelenting heat, the constant buzz and bites of insects, and total lack of sleep due to fear of an attack by a ferociou...

As he looked out onto the horizon, the beauty of the day was stunning.

Below him, the lake shimmered in the early morning light.

Cold air seemed to snap everything into sharper focus.

Dense forest surrounded his perch on the western bluff circling the lake.

Eagles screeched loudly and proudly in the distance.

For Tyler, there was no more perfect morning.

Getting in a hike before winter really se...

The day you've been waiting for has finally arrived. And is it actually everything you thought it would be? Did it live up to the fantastical version of reality you had created in your head?

Does anything ever live up to that reality?

And yet you continue to hope beyond reasonable sanity that each new experience, each new relationship, each new anything will be THE thing that turns your despera...

We're the kind of twins you cannot tell apart.

My entire existence with Ellie has been in tandem, both of us staunch rule followers.

However this summer, I was determined to break our reputation. No longer would we be looked at as the goody two shoe twins, but rather, like all of the other kids at our tiny sleepaway camp, we would live in reckless abandon of conformity. We would no longer sit ...

"Do not go home tonight."

I blinked dumbfounded at the message displaying on my iPhone screen from an unknown number. What the fuck?

"Sarah, is everything alright?"

I look up, phone still in hand, at the rest of the table. With a flash of embarassment, I realize my cohort of coworkers is starting at me. It's Thursday night - happy hour at the local Cheesecake factory. Spending time outside o...

As the countdown began, the glass tube around me began to rise. I was temporarily blinded by white light all around me, as my platform rose. I wanted to simultaneously scream, faint, and vomit all at once. My body was buzzing with adrenaline.

My eyes relaxed as the hard electric lights faded and I temporarily found myself in darkness as I transitioned from below to above ground.

However, thi...

The late autumn wind whipped my hair as I looked out at the wooden dock in front of me. Although no snow had fallen yet, the air was bitterly cold.

Although surely not as cold as the watery depths where Myra's body had been discovered.

Driving here, I felt extremely conflicted. What was the point, really? Nothing was going to bring her back. Surely, my logical brain knew this. But I had to ...

In the heart of the city, under the neon lights

Our paths crossed, igniting endless nights

Drawn together by an irrefutable force

Our lives starkly veered and took a new course

We partied and danced, like there would be no tomorrow

Stifling and burying our collective sorrow

We smoked and we drank and continued to consume

Ignoring our reality, our inevitable doom

Weeks turned to months, and months ...

"Someone is definitely fucking with you."

My girlfriend Myra shakes her curl-covered head and goes back to making breakfast. The familiar sounds of butter sizzling in the pan as she fries up her eggs, the coffee pot chiming out its completed brewing cycle, our dogs nails clacking against the hardwood floor as they wait for a rogue morsel to escape the pan. These sounds surround me but I hear non...