Creating
I came here to put down my secret words, but no place feels safe to keep them. I — I want — I still — I hope — I — So, instead, I let them live in the place only secret words can — my head (my heart?) — and swallow me up like a… Continue reading Secret Words
I once knew where I was going. Had the keys, had the map, had the whole damn tricky tap tap of the tin box holding my twin locks. Just like that — let's go. But now. Now. I'm rooted to the spot. Sticky trickly toffee pudding caramelizes my toes. It burns, it scorches, it blackens… Continue reading Stuck
A smooth quip A quick trip This is it My heart quits
Freezing water runs over stones in my stomach. This is how I know. This is the feeling in my body in the moments before receiving bad news.
Writer's note: This is a piece I wrote a handful of years ago and re-visited recently. Names have been changed for privacy. I know it is a cliché, but I've always had a thing for older men. Not just any older man strikes my fancy of course. He has to be rugged and charming and… Continue reading The Beast
It’s funny how names conjure up images. A Brandi is a surefire stripper. A Chad is a gym rat douchebag who says things like, “I’m counting my macros.” And a Greta, well, a Greta is the type of gal who will milk cows. She’ll churn butter. She’ll make you a strudel with said milk and… Continue reading Greta
I’m not sure how we found it or why we went there. It was tucked away deep in the woods on the last acre or so of our grandparents’ farm, where stinging nettles reached out for bare ankles and still-white blackberries grew. It was far past Brody’s grave beside the willow tree and still farther… Continue reading The Coffee Pot Tree
There was this picture in my dad’s house. It hung on the wall to the left of a window he never looked out of and just to the right of a little bedside table that held my Great Grandmother’s diaries. (Those he looked at often.) The picture that was there—Well, it still could be, come… Continue reading The Ducks
There’s a particular smell that old people have. I’m not quite sure what it is. Equal parts perspiration and decay maybe, with a little White Diamonds spritzed on the wrists. Whatever it is, I take a perverse joy in it. It reminds me of people I’ve loved and lost. It reminds me of bolo neckties,… Continue reading That Smell
The click of the machine pumping morphine into Grandpa’s arm is consistent. In contrast, his breathing is ragged, and every so often he lets out a pained moan that comes from low in the throat and sounds like a death rattle. We’ve heard it at least a dozen times now but it still makes me… Continue reading Turkey Leg
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