essay
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The Language of What Happened to Us
“We knew things were wrong then,” she says, “but we didn’t know how, or why.”
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Smoke Screen
I am an oracle who, while dispensing answers to all those who seek them, cannot predict my own future.
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The Algorithm of Love
The life I had doesn’t flash like I see in movies. The life I want is what stares ahead.
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A Part of Me
Now my not wanting men to be front and center in my life capitalized sperm into a rare commodity. Empowered reproduction is largely a myth.
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The Abattoir
This is what my mother doesn’t want me to see: the death rattle in a forbidden room. This is what she doesn’t want me to know: how one life is sacrificed for another to live.
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Promises
[A]fter Jonah died, I quit making promises to my children because I break them. They forgive me. But I fail to offer that grace to myself. So, I don’t make promises.
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Inheritance
I married a man who is related to me. I started dating him when I was seventeen and of course, my mother immediately liked him. He grew up in my parents’ hometown.
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On Birds, Cats, and Children
My devotion to the cats was not an imitation of human motherhood. To confuse the two, I thought, was an insult to both.
