You shhhouldn’t talk about that. Nobody needs to know that happened. Shhhut your mouth, keep it to yourself. Shhhame is a name-calling, blame-bawling, bull-shhhit kind of game. And I play it so well. Whose voice is it, the one that begs you to lock your tongue behind your teeth, berates your heart into a bitter…
Author: ourcityheart
When I Stopped Keeping Secrets
A few things happened. At first, it felt a little bit like walking down the street with no bra and bare feet, which is a memory dream I have from time to time (less and less, though). I just mean it was uncertain and scary and even a little humiliating to open up and just…
How do I go about getting housing here?
Something bright about the woman with the shaved head and the rumpled piece of fading brown cardboard in hand. Something big about the way she kept herself turned from me slightly as we spoke so that I couldn’t quite read the words she had scribbled onto that sign who knows how long ago. Something brilliant…
Good People Do Shit Things When They’re Hurting | I Know because This Is an Apology
I wish instead of getting out of bed I hadn’t wound up drunk again,and so I never would’ve said the things I said, and never made him listen to that poem that I read,never would’ve gone looking in the garbage bin of years ago and way back when, never would’ve wondered why no one saw…
Sometimes we do forget
Like a string of paper dolls we followed hand in hand to the playground and sat We knew people were dying today, but we didn’t know why Sometimes I think we still don’t Sometimes we do forget Every time a whole group of people is wiped away, we say never Every time the world shakes…
Cooking Past a Pain
Exactly enough time in a pot of boiling, salted water brings a good noodle to a simple balance between flexible and firm. Perfected pasta will pause for thought while you pour the sauce so you can swallow its untoughened texture and enjoy just the flavors you were craving in the first place. Too much time…
Love Language
Tell me you like my green hair, you think it’s sexy. Tell me you think I’m funny, I make you laugh. Tell me you feel all the things for me, I drive you crazy. Tell me you see me taking care of the body you hold at night (unless it’s too hot so we just…
Joy
You’re in heaven and Seven year old birthday cakes Are on sale today
I am no gardener
Like lying atop the bed of a browning garden, growing colder as the sun set on more than 60 years of motherhood, more than 70 years of marriage, more than 80 years of life, she wilted. Like watching a flower that once bloomed bright turn a proud face toward the sunshine before it burned to…
Born & Raised
Home is where you live while you learn why you love, Where you fight for truth in the life you dreamed of. Home is a beach with waves that fall together, Where you plant roots in a bed of forever. Home is belonging even when you’re apart, Where your heart can bleed through your craft,…
Moth-Eaten Sweater 