Red is the color of rage, but also of love, which seems a curious juxtaposition on the surface unless, perhaps, the two are more intricately linked that we like to believe.
Red flows through our veins even though it’s blue we trace lightly across our skin with our fingertips.
Red survives the white-and-gray winter by taking refuge in the cardinal’s feathers. It lives in the spring tulips, the summer strawberries, the autumn maple leaves.
Red marks the passage of time and the demise of another day at horizon’s steadfast edge.
Red guides the honey bees and hummingbirds to sow life into the endless cycle.
Red connects us all—black and brown, white, two legs or four, skin, fur, kind, selfish, innocent, guilty. We all bleed red. If only we could see the color within that unites us as living creatures upon this earth with red blood and pumping hearts and pain receptors.
We are all red.
I'm an award-winning fantasy author, artist, and photographer from La Porte, Indiana. My poetry, short fiction, and memoir works have been featured in various anthologies and journals since 2005, and several of my poems are available in the Indiana Poetry Archives. The first three novels in my Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms series have received awards from Literary Titan.
After some time working as a freelance writer, I was shocked by how many website articles are actually written by paid "ghost writers" but published under the byline of a different author. It was a jolt seeing my articles presented as if they were written by a high-profile CEO or an industry expert with decades of experience. I'll be honest; it felt slimy and dishonest. I had none of the credentials readers assumed the author of the article actually had. Ghost writing is a perfectly legal, astonishingly common practice, and now, AI has entered the playing field to further muddy the waters. It's hard to trust who (or what) actually wrote the content you'll read online these days.
That's not the case here at On The Cobblestone Road. I do not and never will pay a ghost writer, then slap my name on their work as if I'd written it. This website is 100% authentic. No outsourcing. No ghost writing. No AI-generated content. It's just me... as it should be.
If you would like to support my work, check out the Support The Creator page for more information. Thank you for finding my website! 🖤