Today, he said, we will not have sex, and I was pleased and released and buried my face in his sanctioned holiday. [CW: Sexual Abuse]
Today, he said, we will not have sex, and I was pleased and released and buried my face in his sanctioned holiday. [CW: Sexual Abuse]
… Deborah said some creep behind us kept gawking at her. I whirled around.
I pick up the gold necklace sprawled across the train’s floor like a golden snake. Finders Keepers, but I lost something precious once.
Exquisite torments merge in morning thoughts before I wake.
I was practically leaping in excitement to show him the oft-sung medieval bridge of Avignon, and we took off at a run.
This year, I am determined to care for them, to not let them get leggy or turn into sun-brittled husks.
With tightly squeezed fists, she extends her arms. One, two, three steps forward.
“A lion, a goat, and a bundle of grass,” said my teacher, her face like a shut gate. “A person has to ferry them across the river in a boat.”
I was late, so when I found myself still sitting, one stop away, I pitied myself. But then a little girl screamed and began crying …
There’s a sneeze guard that separates each tutor and student.
Our family was polenta poor but our dentist, Dr. Fusco, had a father-in-law who was big with White Owl Cigars, one of the Yankees’ sponsors.
The watcher at the OR window signals to our team. We start the Apgar timer and wait.
A howl near my head. I resist waking, my mind reaching for wisps of dreams.
I saw his face when I least expected it, smiling at me from a corner-mounted television in a crowded café in Prague.
At first I thought it must be a trick of the light, some particular wavelength that shimmered and flicked with an orangish sheen across his skin, like tea gone cold in a porcelain cup.
I consider his marshmallow roasting technique: expectant, leaning forward, cautious not to catch his treat aflame as he rolls the stick between his hands like he’s molding spaghetti out of Play-Doh.
I pulled on jeans and a soft sweatshirt and stepped out of the camper into the cool morning. Mist kissed my cheeks, chilled my hands.
Boom. The sound is decidedly not normal on a day with perfect blue skies and the shoes of thousands of marathon runners smacking the pavement.
It was a mistake to ask him how he had been. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so damn polite.
I used to look in the mirror and see my father. Now it's my mother who stares back.