You lift a fold of wrapping paper, winter blue with curls of silver, peeling back the foil with more care than it deserves.
I stood at the mirror and traced my childhood with my finger along the white roots that appeared in my part.
We walk through cathedrals of chalk. The place is wild and unfamiliar, although only a few hours from home.
When I was six, the story of Mom hopping a train to NYC at sixteen was legend.
In the dark kitchen, I watch the candles flicker, flinging shadows onto the peeling wallpaper.
There was kindness in the hairstylist’s eyes when she looked into mine in the mirror. “Are you sure?”
I roll the word around my mouth. Curfew.
Would you mind shifting over a bit? You're sitting on his hat and he is a coward, he can’t tell you himself.
Nolan runs ahead, while Hana lags behind. She is always distracted by something.
I walked into the studio early to find an undressed model. Which was odd.
Ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk the grocery cart’s wheel formerly locked by an invisible fence that keeps Those People from stealing it away …
I make myself finish combing through all of my worldly possessions for what I hope will be the last time.
The unknown text that flashes on my Nokia 33-something throws my life into an almighty, alternative tangent.
It was day three after. After Appa had lain in a glass case in our front hall for the whole town to pay their last respects.
After she wiped off the spots from the kitchen wall tiles, scraped the stains from the counter, vacuumed the breadcrumbs from the floor . . .
Glancing up from my iPad, I am grabbed by a startling sight.
The phone shocked me awake at 3:06 and into a March pre-dawn.
No discussion. She proceeds to fill the second bedroom with her art supplies.
When I see the fly-flecked carcass of the snake on the country road, I don’t stop my bicycle to check his scales for a pulse.
“Where can I find some socks, Aza?”