Time & Identity

3:20amThese nights don’t feel like they used to when he was smaller and younger. I used to embrace them, find joy in them even a lot of the time. Even when we’d have to come to the living room and play a bit in the wee hours, I’d feel a stillness emerge in the cracks of my sleepiness. I’d feel...

No one warned me about the boxes. I wasn’t going to have kids. I was never interested. How could I be, watching myself and my brothers sap the life force from my mother, who worked full-time and homeschooled me and was always aggravated by something we’d done (or not done)? It looked like a thankless, miserable job. Nah, I’m good....

She had been in a marriage for ten years that would only last a year or two longer. Her first child was six and a half years old. Her second child would have been turning three were they not buried in a cemetery 45 miles from where she and her family then lived. She had moved a little more than...

I didn’t walk blindly into the befogged  chasm In fact I  hurtled myself down at breakneck  speed knowing it would  hurt knowing it would  steal me of  my youth  And yet not knowing  what love  I would  find there

I see you. Your beautiful hair pulled up, your bangs swept across. The elastic on your T-shirt is tattered and pulled, no doubt from the countless requests for milk each day. It exposes your regal collarbones. The throne on which sits your precious breasts, nourishing him day after day. Connecting you. For life. When you stand up tall, you look fearless. A queen. How you deserve to...

I feel left behind. Many emails that I’m receiving and pictures I’m seeing on social media depict a “post Covid” world. A world in which folks are no longer wearing masks, or keeping their distance from each other. I see people taking long postponed vacations, rescheduling weddings and having big parties. Getting on planes, going about their lives as if...

Tonight is the eve of my 37th birthday. I’ve got solo reservations at a local restaurant for tomorrow night. I’ve been treating myself to bodily delights this week: hiking, swimming, sauna, baths, yoga, beach walks. Just two months ago I mustered all my courage and moved to a new city, a whole new place, with lots of open space and nature....

There’s milk and a sweet smell. The bed sheets, mangled. The bed is gravity—I slink toward it, whether I want to or not. I live in a body I do not know. A lot of people never bounce back. I went through a big thing but no one wants to hear about it. It’s too hot and I’m not used...

I hate these  short dark  days of  unyielding winter Postpartum  (postmortem)  body (self)  in various states of  decay My life force  escaping out of  every pore every orifice  All the pads soaking me up Little fish mouth eating me up There’s a long  night ahead met by a cold morning My breath  hangs in the air cumulous  There would  be...

Before I moved out of my parent’s house and into my first home with my new husband, I carefully wrapped my beloved Chatty Cathy doll, my Poor Pitiful Pearl doll, and an assortment of Barbie and Ken dolls in a protective layer of tissue paper, then placed them inside a sturdy box which I promptly sealed shut with packing tape.  The...