It's been fourteen years since I pushed a baby out of body, swearing like a sailor. Fourteen years since I swallowed that fistful of tears and said yes, she is yours. Ten days after she was born, I loaded down my plastic Saturn and hit I-90, never to return home. At the beginning, there was... Continue Reading →
Featured in the final issue of Ink in Thirds, March 2019 Last July, at a friend's prompt, I wrote what July felt like. During this month, I feel myself turn into a concrete slab. I don't make eye contact with people. When I feel an emotion--any emotion--I turn away from it, focus on something that... Continue Reading →
There was a teenage girl swinging at the park tonight, playing country music from her phone speakers. She was singing along, loudly and mostly out of tune. I recognized myself in her. I thought of how I am always seeking solitude. How I look for places where I can be alone, remember myself again. I... Continue Reading →
There is this thing people say to divorced women, only maybe it’s just to me: that it will get easier because another man will come along. He will make the money and have the house and insurance and I can hang on his arm and have it too. It is the age-old trope: a man... Continue Reading →
Here are my books, full of words I wrote; these are my stacks of author copies. This week I have been inscribing and mailing books to the nice people who support my art, even if my particular aesthetic isn't theirs. I have been figuring out how to promote myself. I have emailed local bookstores and... Continue Reading →
I have retired from waitressing; folded my apron for good this time. I never wanted to go back to it, but even still, I did. Last August I cried to my girlfriend as I told her I was going back to the Johnny's, that I wouldn't see her on the weekends any more. I did... Continue Reading →
I keep making these posts because I keep marveling about how songs make up playlists that remind me of a particular time. I keep these playlists as a sensory journal. Every time I set foot in a high school, I remember high school. There is a smell they all share: sweat and industrial cleaner and... Continue Reading →
For the last year and a half, I have coached a slam poetry team. I was offered the job the same day I moved into my first apartment after marriage. This job was all I could manage while I finished up grad school. It was just a couple hours one afternoon a week and I... Continue Reading →
The thing about writing is it isn't just sitting here when I feel creative and transforming my thoughts into words in a Word doc. If only it was just that. Also, there is this matter of publishing. Tom Williams said, "So long as our words remain private to us, they are incomplete and inert. Power... Continue Reading →
