Grayed over and dried out is the final act of an empty and dying garden atop a bed of infertile soil. Even knowing this to be true and having watched through her window for years as the colors faded and the possibilities withered with each setting sun, the woman in the house with no children…

Sticky  isn’t quite the right word for the way my left hand feels  every time I hold it between my legs,  hold my breath and count to five,  hold my chin up to keep my pride,  & hold my eyes wide to keep them dry.  And that stupid sticky strip of just-standing-still between my legs …

Lying in this bed that I’ve made, wrapped  in arms and paws and blankets, I’m watering my pillows  with mascara that I should have washed off before crawling  in, but I never do.  While I weep myself to sleep,  for the third or fourth time this week,  I hold my own hand and tell my…

Rows and rows of diamonds lined the countertop, you were here to sell instead of shop, and I should have tried harder to make you stop.We were still so new,and they threw that ring from a life before me and youacross the counter and paid what was due. You sold it to help me pay…

After a womb fills for the first time, a woman is always a mother, child born or child lost or child given back. Maybe only a mother knows. So maybe next time, I will name her Hope from the minute the strip turns pink, and I will speak her into my world whether she breathes…

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…

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…

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…