W ooooooohoooooooooooooo!!!!!!! Finally after many months of anticipation we get to see Marissa's beautiful picture! I've known her for a long time now and I just love her more and more through it all.

She is the rose, tall and proud in her strength.  She is beautiful, soft and delicate yet has her thorns (like all of us).


    How cheezy this must sound, comparing a woman to a rose; very original too right?  Well what else is there to compare her to?
    She is a lion, roaring her anger when life throws her a rut.  She is a serpent, hypnotic, sensual and exotic.  She is a cool autumn rain on fevered skin, warm sunshine chasing the chill of skinny-dipping away.  She is the older sister, wise and caring.  She is the soft vulnerable caress of a first kiss...  Words fail me, she is all this and more.  If you've become close to her, you know.

~Anonymous~

"AMOR INTELLECTUALIS.

          OFT have we trod the vales of Castaly
            And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
            From antique reeds to common folk unknown:
          And often launched our bark upon that sea
          Which the nine Muses hold in empery,
            And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,
            Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
          Till we had freighted well our argosy.
          Of which despoilèd treasures these remain,
            Sordello's passion, and the honied line                   10
          Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
            Driving his pampered jades, and more than these,
          The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,
            And grave-browed Milton's solemn harmonies."

-Wilde, Oscar 1881-