Last Saturday, I got a text from my bakery manager inviting me to an event that would take place four days later. I was told to dress in business attire and given the address to an event hall. I couldn't go, I replied. Ilya Kaminsky was in town that night and I had to see... Continue Reading →
Here's what it's like, splitting custody of my children after spending years putting them to bed each night, dressing them each morning, hearing their laughter and squabbles at all hours, watching their little heads bob as they move. Sometimes I stand at my stove, stirring noodles into boiling water for myself and it is so... Continue Reading →
I keep chasing this quiet. The hallowed silence, the absence of the sounds of other people. I am a private person. I like to hole up in my own space without anyone asking me to do something else instead. I have to learn to say no to people, learn to make my own quietness as... Continue Reading →
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 →
