I went on writing hiatus to spend time with my family and enjoy the holidays, not to watch my city fall apart. The itch to create has been painful but that is nothing in relation to the horrors that I am witnessing tonight. If any of you don’t know, I live in St. Louis. And I don’t mean West County, or Ladue. I live North of Page and Hanley. No I am not in Ferguson, but I feel this all around me.

I sat waiting for the Grand Jury’s decision and tried to touch base with friends, especially those who have left our hometown but want updates. Now I am awake and all of the anger, all of the pain will not leave me. Due process is a concept that I believe in and support. I cannot say if justice has been served or not. At this point that is not what ails me.

The fires, the gunshots, the violence has nothing to do with Michael Brown anymore. It has elevated beyond that. I am not a racial minority, but I am a religious one. The people of my faith make up 1% of the population. I know what it feels like to be targeted, misunderstood, and misrepresented. When one Pagan commits a crime everyone wants to claim that all of us are in league with the devil. That kind of labeling and injustice is exactly what is happening right now.

Everyone wants to know how we move on from here. Damn it, we need more minorities to enter the police force, run for office, and work inside the system to change the laws that many do not agree with. In order to be represented one must share the power. What are you going to do? You. Every single one of you. Minority or not.

My main goal has been to work my ass off and write enough to have the resources to create scholarship programs for your writers in the failing school districts in my area. I say this as I hear numerous sirens passing my house. My teeny tiny, little brick house with a toilet that won’t work without a plunger, windows that need to be redone, a basement that floods, and numerous other problems.

We all have problems but you know what you do, you work on them one by one a little at a time. I love my home, my neighborhood, my neighbors. That is where we NEED to start!