I’ve never been a recognizable person. The baby pictures don’t match the little girl, who resembles nothing of the teenager, and the adult that emerged doesn’t look in any way related to the rest of them. Some people have a ley line through their lives. They’ve always looked like their families and they’ve always looked like themselves, and I’ve always been a person – it … Continue reading 28

In 2022, I lived in 3 different places. I had 3 jobs, 2 cars, 2 moves. I traveled to 2 new countries and 3 new states. Twos and threes. 2022 was by no means the hardest year of my life. 2021 covets that distinction. But it might have been the busiest. In 2022, I was a weightless thing that got lost in the slip stream … Continue reading Twos and threes

I recognize that the channels of life narrow, at times, like all things do. I know that the ones my waters haven’t yet flown down will hurt, the sides are jagged and new and unpolished. I greet my sadness in these closed quarters like an old war buddy. “This again,” we’ll laugh to ourselves. Too often has my gloom been a better ally than those … Continue reading The cork in my throat

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