circling

The thing that I didn’t understand about grief, for forever, is that it was never reserved for the obvious gaping losses of life. An ever-present thing called grief lives in your house, walks with you as you move, layers on your skin like the sweat of summer. In your sleep, it learns to leave, melting …

the odds

In a college textbook I read sterile paragraphs about failing hearts, heavy lungs, dying brains—all the things that deliver their poison quietly. In the state prison the ceiling is cold and there is the metallic taste of a helpless death that no one is going to save you from. Along the route to church, nearly …

map of the morning

Crows dissect the morning moon and scream instead of laughing. Silver cobwebbed pools of light gather across the ground. There are no mentions of death or life here, only the blurry pulsing motion of two nameless forces who grip each other in an infinite wrestling match. They are sightless bloody furious fighters with cracked knuckles …

northern lights

A meter is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. You have a hundred thousand paper thoughts that hover like it's easy to be weightless. They are deep purple and a blue that doesn't actually exist and there's faded veins of gold, cutting through the whole tilted picture …

if I could write a letter

If I could write a letter. I'd build a fort around my top bunk, sheets pinned to the ceiling and pillows piled up along the edges, and I'd crawl into the shadowy little fortress and turn on a flashlight and flip to the next empty page in my yellow notebook. I would write to the …

trust

lightly

I take a walk in my mother's shoes. My familiar companion, eyes bright with anticipation, pauses just long enough to roll in the soft grass by the gate before she's off to seek out undiscovered treasures. The seven-year-old kid in my mind with unbrushed hair and dirty overalls reminds me to practice walking quietly, letting …

green light

It's warm enough to wear shorts outside, humid enough to drench yourself in bug spray (a sick-sweet smell, like overripe apples at the grocery store). All the leftover Halloween candy is nothing but empty wrappers, and as of glancing at the tiny digital clock at 12:32 AM, it's Friday the 13th. There's an office chair, …

slow motion

There are eighteen spoons in the kitchen sink tonight. The last one—a line of flowers engraved along its silver handle—slips out of someone's favorite coffee mug and disappears into a white-foamed ocean. Its slow motion rescue occurs in a careless fashion, clumsy fingers reaching blindly through clouded water and grasping at the wayfaring utensil as …

november