Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
I. James Edward the Third entered the world like a limp bruise—purple against the sterile room—in a silence that hurt my ears from straining, stretching and stretching, taking with it his brain cells and future. Some of you will know what I mean. I’m sorry for that. The only thing Read more
The shape of heavy tears streaking down, earthwards, journeying to find our loved ones faces, again The shape of trembling lips the very moment we recall their forevermore absence as we write the date, on this day their birthday The shape of the book on the shelf in the store, Read more
August 2016 I’m kneeling in the aisle like a worshipper dropping tears into the white ceramic shell of an armadillo. What else would you do on your inaugural Target run in a new town you thought you would love but don’t even like? Read more
We stood over you with the dropper of oxycodone, trying to get it in the tiny pocket inside your cheek, the three of us, like The Witches of Eastwick, but a lot less funny. Your jaw was clenched tight like a clam because you were about to die, only we Read more
Today is a good day to die. The neighbor’s mother is dying next door, fifty feet from us. She has been dying for some days. The son arrived yesterday, though, from Ohio, all red-eyed, sleep deprived, and unshaven, and I happened to be collecting the mail. “Hi, how are you?” I Read more
his life is fleeting his spirit walking away cricket cries break through the veil of his eternal night each timid step he makes on brittle bones glued together with a poisonous elixir that drips and overflows pooling around his icicle grey eyes it strips away his beauty one strand of Read more
Of our family tree you are a branch life’s cruel disposition removed from us when I was young; memories of you faded as years lapsed by the way a tree forgets leaves it shed over the years. Leaving me with stories my mother tells about the love you had for Read more
I’ve never minded solitude. For a writer, it’s a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a particular kind of loneliness. —Laurie Graham My mother is leaving me. Her mind allows her to tell me about my favorite stuffed animal when I was three, my Effalunt, but Read more