Author: Ashley R. Sanders

I am feeling brave this morning - brave enough to write - to spill my ink blood on the physical and digital pages that lie before me waiting to soak it up, to be filled with meaning. That very notion, that my words may have such power, causes me to hesitate. Who am I to think I wield words and ideas with such skill? And yet, they are in me, brewing, stewing, ready to overflow the confines of mind...

Freedom is accepting and acting on one's right to choose.--Ashley Sanders This definition takes as axiomatic an innate right to make choices about one's life. An absence of this right implies a lack of freedom. It implies the responsibility involved when accepting that one has a right to make decisions and that those decisions necessarily have effects and consequences. When making a choice,...

Sketch by Ashley Sanders What is vulnerability butletting your heart step nakedinto another's handand waitingwith held breathand knotted stomachwonderingif your heart will be crushedbefore your very eyesorif your intuition was correctand the other will cradle and protectthe precious gift you've shared. Trust Trust is earned when the otherhas proven to be a careful guardianof your heart t...

Eyes blink sleepily openstaring at the hazy figuresas they slowly come into focus,fuzzy, gray blurs becomingdefined multi-hued crisp linessharpened by the sun's dawning light.The drift between twilight and dawn was filled with memory-dreams,bright, fevered desiresthat grew like the monstrous shadows,beckoning me deeper into the dark.Adrift in the sea of night, I could not resist their siren's...