Things hurt now, in a new way, the likes of which I’ve never experienced. I go out night-walking with headphones, careful to avoid the train tracks, and sometimes I try to decipher what this pain is. I want to understand it, and to be able to explain it. The closest I can come is that […]
the time is coming when i will go back into the photojournalist i feel it like that child of five scary thing behind me falling up dark cellar stairs the time is coming when i will crawl back into him or he will come back into me hey, did i ever tell you how he was already a part […]
Every day now, I take my sister to receive brain radiation. She gets locked into a mask and affixed to a table, a box is lowered over her head, and she squeezes her eyes closed while a searing light steals what’s left of her cognition. And in turn, perhaps, extends her life by a few months. […]
By the time I really quit the DJ I’d lost respect for him, and that was probably the hardest part. I don’t blame myself for that; respect is relatively difficult thing to maintain in the face of someone who says, “I’d do anything to be with you,” and then tries to off himself when you don’t return […]
Before the photojournalist and I said our final goodbye, he offered me some insight in the form of a story. The story was about a soldier who’d returned from war and found himself unable to feel in the ordinary sense, the result of adapting to such heightened conditions in his years away. He pretended, in the presence […]
As an adult, all of the memories she has about him fall under one simple category: Sad Lessons on Life & Love. Still, as a child, there was Daddy. Bringing her presents and leaving her notes in his left-handed scrawl, each one confirming how absolutely wonderful she was. Feeding her on his oration and tucking her in […]
I finally reached my sister’s hospital room on the night of Christmas Eve, in the year that I was 24, she 28. Her head was a swollen mess of bruises and stitches and blood and hair. I’d caught a ride with a stranger to find the girl I’d loved for all these awful years so close to gone that […]
The last time I saw the photojournalist, we scheduled a tearing apart. I was so dazed afterwards that it’s been hard to find the words. Even now, with a few months distance, I doubt I’ll be able to do it justice. I wore a blue and gold dress for the occasion. Silk. It was beautiful. […]
Shortly after Mum threw the hammer at my little brother, I was finally awarded custody of him. It was a mixed blessing. Tripp, at 14, and I, at 24, were both relieved to have finally escaped Mum’s reach. But Tripp was already suffering from damage that would take far more than my custody of him to […]
She takes a deep breath. Because she’s going to have a “proper conversation” with him on Monday. His words. Mingling with hers. And the scheduling of this event sent a shiny cocktail fork careening into her beautiful adult female wiring. Which is just her way of saying she’s grossly unprepared. Thus the deep breath. Because breathing […]
my delusions 