You can only vomit so much of your trauma into the plastic bucket that’s provided. In the morning you leave the yoga studio, leave the warm embrace, step out into sunlight that caroms off of all the steel and glass surrounding you. You feel quiet stir and you try to hold on to her but quiet is a twitchy woodland creature and once again she is off and running.
You can’t seem to stay here. Your hummingbird mind flutters rapidly, you wish to remain in air. You do not want to light on reality. Times like this, you wish your life is just a rough draft.
We do not kiss much anymore. Mike’s beard scratches me, I want to brush my teeth first, then I end up washing my face, maybe rearranging my beauty products, something I have been meaning to do for ages, just a second, I’ll be right there.
Playlists erased album identity, and pristineness is now maintained with the wipe of a smudged thumbprint; my display cabinet replaced by a cloud I fear might one day dissipate. My rows of records, categorized in order of affection, drew admiration when friends visited. If anyone requests now to peruse my music collection, I hand them my phone, and request they swipe gently.
I know how to be patient like this. I know how to hunt like this. My father has hunted me in this same way for years. He has sat waiting for hours, days, weeks—waiting for the mistake I always make that will bring him to my room at night. I only ever know after I make the mistake.
I opened my mind to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I was given these sensitivities for a reason. Maybe, just maybe, with the right amount of knowledge and practice, I could use these to help others.
Welcome to The Converse-Station: a dialogue between writers. I read an advanced copy of Zoe Zolbrand's book, The Telling, and I couldn't put it down - This...
I was constantly trying to make them more creative which the professors appreciated, but they were like “and now you have to write the straight up analytical paper.” I ended up writing a lot of double assignments.
Emma's life was unexpectedly and devastatingly cut short one year ago. But in the eighteen years that we were gifted her presence, her beautiful and resilient soul, were learned many lessons, not the least of which to enjoy life to capacity and to never take things for granted.
Friends have asked carefully if I regret not speaking to her. It was not anything I had ever done, to anyone, and I do not know how to answer.I know the decision made me less miserable at the time. That does not help.
