This is an excerpt from a novel I'm writing.

Living in a slow southern town can become tedious and dull. But, there was always something about Southern charm that pulled me in. My childhood was ordinary and full of adventures. There was nothing special about my actions or what I did. My imagination flew leaps and bounds over the earth. I grew up in a Southern sweet syrupy way. Slow summers by the lake and mischievous schoolyard hyperactive playful memories. Church dresses and hair bows filled my Sundays where mismatched shorts and t-shirts filled my schooldays.

Temptation is a pesky little devil, the way that it can turn sweet innocence into devious little creatures. It perches on masks of naïve faces and digs it’s claws in for the kill.

Goodness is attached at the heart and seeps through your body like honey. It sticks and can never go away once you succumb to its sweetness. There is no going back from goodness because it becomes your very being, your very nature.

Can someone not feel the stickiness while the claws dig in from their face? Overall, does the honey not cushion the blow? Why do two extremes have to be the way of life? Why can there not be a middle ground where human nature is allowed to thrive? Does everything fit into the black and whiteness of a colored world?

Does being Southern grace strip away a gypsy passion? Is feeling pleasure the wrong way of right? How am I to know? Is it the gypsy blood that saved me or condemned me?