Category: Emotional Health
Close to Home
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
Hearts are breaking everywhere
Even though I cannot see your face Nor place my fingers upon your skin; I am here; craving your words, your Warmth, the small smile in the dark, So damn sweet As if still children; we would play on the Playground, eat unwashed apples, and Ride our bikes, dangerously… Need Read more
Trapped Tears
It’s back, that distantly familiar swell under my ribs, a bitter sensation, like crying which is desperate to escape. Is it my trapped tears, all alone inside my chest? Or the hollow itself that they inhabit, which hurts? The aching makes me inhale, throbbing intensifies. Perhaps because my sorrow is Read more
Every single night
My brain is a place of deep concern to me. My brain is a place of butterflies and octopi. You haven’t seen a place such as this and I am so happy for you. You tell me to smile and chock it all up to my negative attitude – that Read more
Night Shift
My hands come together prayerful around the whistling hot cupful to wait to sip scorchless to feel its breath grow cool degree by half degree across my lip— A vigil I cannot keep. All day I touch my raw tongue to the back of my teeth. Again, broadside in the Read more
LEGISLATING SEX
Teenagers in Texas can no longer get birth control on their own. The logic of this escapes me just as it did when I was a teenager and my step-father stole my birth control pills out of my purse. He did not want the shame of a pregnant teenage daughter, Read more
Richard’s Mummy
Richard isn’t at school today. He wasn’t there yesterday, either. When I get home, my mother seems sad. She crouches, looking into my eyes with hers. “Richard’s Mummy is – “ My mother has tears now. I don’t ask her why, I wait. I feel uncomfortable. “Richard hasn’t got a Read more