New Year: Anew
It made sense to end the year as it had gone on. So much pain last year needed acknowledgment. As much as I enjoy star shine and buttercups, it would have been wrong to paint opalescence over the chaos. But now that the wind has died down, the shelling has quelled, I survey the rubble and see what’s left. Good things happen in the midst of turmoil. I see a glint of red amidst the gray–it is the capability of action. Fear, so much fear, held me back from taking risks for many years. The freedom of having little left to lose dissolved that fear like acid. Strangely, I am fundamentally changed. I take…
Let That Be Enough
Perpetual dissatisfaction marked my childhood. The neighborhoods I grew up in were too sterile, too full of cement and subdivisions. There was nothing left to explore; nothing that hadn’t already been tracked, catalogued and secured by adults. I could never properly explain this feeling to my mother. “I want to live in nature!” I would whine. I would plot how I could possibly run away and take enough reading material and Oreos to last me to adulthood, in a My Side of the Mountain scenario. Both my parents tried to explain how lucky I was. Everyone wanted to live in America, and everyone who already lived in America wanted to live in Los Angeles.…
She’d Have Liked That
She died on Thanksgiving Day, hours before dawn. We had known it would be soon, but had hoped someone would be with her when she went. As it was, we were spending twelve hours a day at her bedside, taking turns holding her hand and waiting. But she met death on her own terms, and really that seemed fitting, even if it haunted us. I don’t like to remember her as she was in those last days, but I do, especially on Thanksgiving. Her previously plump cheeks had been hollowed by cancer, her downy soft silvery hair like a cloud above the gaunt temples. The worst were her large, china doll…
If We Let It
It patters on the banana fronds Runs in rivulets down muddy streets Mossy tufts sprout in the old gypsy’s room The house crumbling around us. Years have passed without it ceasing It will wipe down our memories, and with them Our history.
Take Me Away
“Natalie,” Mrs. Stenninger bent down to my desk. Tall and angular, she always squatted to talk to us at our tiny desks. I quickly shoved my book into the cubby. “Yes?” I asked, feigning innocence, like the pro liar I was fast becoming. “What are you reading?” she asked. Mrs. Stenninger suffered no fools. I sighed. No point in trying to salvage the fib. “A mystery book. It’s called Mandie and the Forbidden Attic.” “Is it good?” I searched her face to see if she was genuinely interested. Her brow raised, her face open–all signs pointed to “yes.” “Yes. It’s exciting.” I grasped through my ten-year old mind to express what that meant to…
Second-Hand Sunglasses
The Saturday before school started, Tina and her mom went to Second Hand Love for back-to-school clothes. Tina hated the feeling of wearing someone else’s jeans, but after a few wears she forgot all about it. After all, one could swing from the monkey bars just as well in pre-owned pants as ones that came brand new from Macy’s, and the other kids only made fun the first week of school before moving on to easier targets than Tina. As her mom searched for necessary items of clothing that didn’t show too much wear at the knees or pilling across the chest, Tina moseyed around the more interesting shelves. She picked…
Do Not Pass “Go”
I suppose the idea burrowed into my brain during my first upper-division literature course, which makes sense. It was Victorian literature, and the professor was a midwestern transplant who wore loafers to class and introduced Dickens in a way that actually made him interesting to me. She had mentioned her plans to spend the summer abroad in England, touring the homes of all her favorite Victorian writers. You can do that? I thought to myself, as if I had just discovered I was an adult and could eat all the candy I wanted. My imagination began stirring up a misty future that up until that point had been rather blank. That idea never really…
Without the Map
I tried to forgive them, for my sanity’s sake, but the longer I sat there the more I wanted revenge. Imagining walking back to town through the piss-soaked streets, the mud so thick it formed an unwieldy suction around every step, my jaw stiffened. They must have snatched the boots while I slept–it was probably Petyr’s idea, I never trusted those murky eyes of his–and taken them to sell at the stalls with all the rest of the hawkers. Worse than the muddy streets, though, was the money I would have to scrape together for another pair of shoes. Hopefully they’d have combat or hunting boots in decent shape. I didn’t want to settle for…
Judee
In the span of a breath, everything changed It fell from her hand, hung from a limp trunk Glinting with hazard, its surface warned us Of perils she ignored, or so we thought. Her voice climbed branches mellifluously Effortlessly returning humanity Back to us so we could hear the melody Of our own souls singing forgotten songs I miss the unsung, unwritten music That filled infinite possible nightclubs If we could only dart into the past Quickly enough to pluck it from her arm.
Grown-up Furniture
A fun factoid most people don’t know about me is that my dad built most of my nice furniture. Sure, there’s the glossy piano that I got as a graduation present, back when teaching piano was my only means of self-support, and the exotic media stand I bought from my cousin, whose taste I’ve tried to emulate since L.A. Gear was the hip new thing; however, nothing comes close to the same level as the furniture my dad built. This is the only reason I have had grown-up furniture at all, rather than apartments full of Ikea hand-me-downs and garage sale finds. It started with the desk. I had started writing my first novel at eighteen, back…
