I used to twist my words until they told stories I had never heard before. Too forgiving, other people used to say. A woman— Maintaining imagery, An object to be viewed. I know how to blame myself And how to polish the same wineglass till it sparkles— Till it shatters in the hand. I remember …
Continue reading worth: a memory
We are on fire out here, again. The wind, despite how I may love her, is cruel. And yet, the presence of her here is electrifying. My hair tingles at the places where it meets my scalp. Before, I am asleep. Now, I am suddenly awake. At the group meeting, we sit in a circle. …
My cousin told me once that when she was trying to quit smoking, she buried her tobacco. She walked all along down the beach until she found a place within the sand and she buried it. If I remember right, she rolled one last cigarette before she nested the loose shreds of leaves into the …
Do you know how many novels I have authored in my head? I walk around in circles with imaginary words. Sometimes the words are so loud I climb beneath the covers and I scream. Sometimes I eat them. Take a corner of an m and gnaw and gnaw like dogs with bones. Sometimes I light …
Nothing is too ugly for this world. I think, rather, it is us pretending not to see. My father tells me a story, about my grandfather’s funeral, and how an uncle approached him and asked if he had seen the casket yet. I am two, maybe three, on some stranger’s lap probably beside my brother, …
Continue reading Bad Hairdo at a Funeral
Render. What is this body I have made? How strange, this physicality of self. The things I have become, and all of those I haven’t. Sometimes, when my eyes are not quite working right, I look like someone else inside the mirror. Unfamiliar. Foreign. I wonder if my mother would still know me—but, of course, …
The Wild Heart of Life 