jealous: onomatopoeia-like, it slithers off the tongue; rotting the soul, destroying all it touches, leaving debris in its path. When I was taking a particular creative writing class, Pat, our instructor would give us short, often one word prompts, to write about for a minute or so. It was just enough time to jot down a sentence or two, a paragraph if you were quick. This practice kept my mind thinking of ways to consider words or phrases. The commute to this class would be a little on the long side (I don’t live in PDX anymore), so I’ve taken to using a couple of sites for ideas. A few days ago the two words were so opposite of each other that it caught my attention: rainbow: hope, confidence, expectation jealous and hope It’s funny, and not in a comical way, how these words are so contradictory. One full of causality and destruction, the other resonates with possibility. All gets weighed in the balance we call life. Our scales tip back and forth until th