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 […]
I went so long without seeing him. Forever really. Long enough, I speculated, for us to become two entirely different people, and unrecognizable. But there he is, when I enter, sitting up in bed with his reading glasses on, hospital gown backwards, chest exposed, and looking just as erudite and handsome and savage as […]
You don’t know why you dream about the writer. Seems like probably just because you fell asleep reading My Struggle. But there’s a lot going on in the dream, and it feels significant in the way that some dreams do. Not in their storylines, perhaps, nor their imagery, their host of characters. But rather in waking up […]
“Isn’t it strange? I don’t even know you,” she says. This time they’re in his kitchen. It’s late now but they’ve been occupying the room for hours, since she went in to drink water straight from the faucet and he followed and a song came on that moved her and she raised her arms high and […]
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 […]
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. […]
While it’s true that Dad dying changed her life changed irrevocably, there was, long before that, the irrevocable changing of life anyway. It’s only now, in reaching an age he never attained, that she recognizes how simultaneously insubstantial and grandiose his existence. Insubstantial because of its disjointed structure. Brevity. Lacking the development of even one simple character […]
I’m having another episode. I’m never sure what to do when this happens, and at first I tend to respond by thrashing wildly. Grasping at nearby surfaces as I plummet, only to watch them loosen and break too. Far better once I recognize the hopelessness of struggle, as at least I can leave off bringing […]
Caleb and you spend long afternoons in your bedroom waiting for spring. He sleeps with his strong arm thrown over you and you yourself never sleep but steady your breathing enough to convince him that you do. Without knowing why, you like this foolery, this deception. It makes you happy. You try to keep this […]
You know, sometimes happiness is just so damn elusive. Sometimes life is just hard and the people you want to believe in betray you. Sometimes they go crazy, disown you, fucking die. Sometimes your heart breaks. (A lot of the time your heart breaks.) Sometimes you go on medication. Numb that shit out. Sometimes, days […]
my delusions 