The Fall
In the dawn of a fall morning, on my drive, I picked up the phone to call. Each ring felt like a lifetime.
The Hands Know First
I was ten, and I could tell you the time without a clock. This is not a story about what happened in that house. It is a story about the equipment that got installed there.
The Photograph Doesn't Know
There is no word for what you are. Not widowed, not divorced, not even estranged, exactly. You lost someone who is still alive, and nobody is going to ask how you are doing with it.
Ice Cream at the Headstone
No one checks in on the person still grieving a year on, because from the outside you look like you healed.
The Well Furnished Cage
The life you keep just out of reach, so it can never disappoint you. On the quiet cage that looks like maturity, and the key that was inside all along.
The Grief With No Grave
No amount of waiting heals this, because the person you're waiting on is the wound.
No One Checks In On the Strong One
You are the one people call. When it comes apart for someone else, the message at eleven at night, the voice that goes thin on the phone, the friend who needs somewhere to set the weight down for a minute, you are the name they reach for.