Silver Lining by Rilo Kiley was my chorus after I left. It was the relentless chant in my mind before I did. Maybe there’s more. Maybe some people don’t feel confined to small rooms. Maybe some people aren’t scared in their own homes. Maybe some people don’t wake up with a racing heart. Maybe some people listen to the screaming of their souls. Maybe I’m … Continue reading Loops

I don’t remember when I got the fortune. I don’t remember the meal that precipitated it. I barely remember that moment in time. But I always kept my fortunes, even if they were laughably disenchanting. This one was perfect in its simplicity and its absolution: There is a way to everything you want. It was sitting loosely on my fridge when you first saw it. … Continue reading there is a way to everything you want

June 17, 2021 It’s been 10 days past a year since I first moved in. I imagine you won’t read these words until it’s a husk. The afternoon light beaming to an empty audience in the standing air. I have an idea of where I might be on that day. I have this little dream that doesn’t seem unlikely, but I’ve had many little dreams. … Continue reading apartment 2007

The great scales of the world pardon no one. The grief of life is feeling the slow descent, lingering in the shadow of what rose. The cold gravity of the lower place, rich in weight and lacking in power. The grief of life is not knowing when you’ll rise again, and if you’ll know the pressure of this thumb upon you forever. The grand euphoria … Continue reading The great scales

In Clipped Wings, I wrote: “The duality of people is not a give and take, it is not a push and pull. The duality of people is the continuous explosion of a dying star. Burning hot and bright and then imploding into a dense dark giant. A death and rebirth, of which the byproducts can be lovely and life giving, but always a cycle of … Continue reading plain as day and far as night

I’m coming to understand that some of these things that I thought could be massaged out of me like knotted muscles are not so easily untangled. They’re not errant feelings that require fixing, they are the essence of me. This is the way that I am. I see things in this complicated, thorough, melancholic, profound lens that can be so guttural, so jagged, I only … Continue reading this is how i see.

Dear mother, I know I’m not taking care of myself. I know wine is no dinner and the morning is no bedtime. I know I grant an allotment to my fear and my trivial quandaries. Ultimately, I know I’m the one that waters them. I know I allow their poison to seep into my bloodstream. I know that my time is far too precious to … Continue reading 3/18

I understand why people need to believe in Heaven. That the concept of just being gone is one we’re capable of consuming, but instead we loiter at its edge because we’re all too aware of what stepping over means. We do this. We feel the pull of a heavy thing with deep, crushing gravity and we don’t advance because it’s untested and inadvisable to see … Continue reading in yeilding

It costs money to die. They make sure you settle the bill before they’ll come near you with needles. But I’m only being unkind because the whole business of living is such a remarkable sham. That’s what it is, a business. Our life is a series of transactions. And we give it meaning because we contain the extraordinary gift to do so. But every move … Continue reading Bing Bong

I still remember the night we got home. Ruidoso remains my favorite place to think of. It feels like another planet now, not only because we traveled across a burnt desert to get there, but because of what came out of it. Two totally different people, leaving the crackling mountain heat for the humid May air, transformed. I knew I loved you before I left … Continue reading keep on movin’