Author: mpau@thebeatwithin.org

by Suada  Mistakes are something that everyone has. They are part of life. Mistakes are how we learn. Nobody has ever lived a life where they never made one mistake it’s simply impossible. Some may be more serious than others, but in the end, they are all errors and nothing more. That rolling grass hill, the sun shining above, little bluebirds are chirping. You walk along that bubbling stream with your best friend. You turn to say something, open your mouth, it is too late. It just slipped out. You said something you didn’t mean to say. All of the

by Michael Cabral He broke my heart. After that night I’d see him act the same bewildering way many more times. It was, I eventually learned, what too many beers did to him. But the first time my uncle hit me (I was four or five years old), all I knew was that something had changed. Not in him. No. something had changed in me.  I was named after my Uncle Mike, and that already made me feel close to him. When he started calling me his “Bodyguard,” though, and especially when he’d introduce me to people that way (“This is

by Elías People find it difficult to admit fault. We would rather receive an apology than apologize for our own wrongdoings. It is a position of power: having the ability to forgive someone or not, rather than being at the mercy of another, in a vulnerable position.    We all wish we could take back certain decisions. I do, frequently. The situations I could have handled differently keep me up at night, but I try not to let them eat me alive.  My father’s death was different: it continuously creeps up on me. The weekend of his death, a Saturday,