HER NIGHTMARE OF A LIFE.

April 11, 2007

I wrote Her Nightmare of a Life after a jail call that rattled me more than I expected. The woman was barely in her twenties, but looked twice that. She twitched, mumbled, and swatted at hallucinations—crack and trauma coursing through her veins. Her story spilled out on the way to the hospital: forced to smoke laced rock at gunpoint, kids at home with a husband who funded her habit, a mother just as lost. She said she wanted to die. And for a split second, I didn’t blame her. Writing it was my way of making sure someone else saw what I saw—how far gone some people already are before we ever show up.