Tag: emotional health
How to Become a Teenage Bulimic
When I was young, my mother Was obsessed with not eating. She’d scream, Skip the carbs, no bread Or rice. Today I view food Like a used car salesman, The mirror as a cross-examination To see if anything is amiss, The muffin top, the sags. And still, I hear the Read more
Optical Illusion
I hate to imagine the times I made my mother cry behind the closed door. She wanted to see my face when she looked at her reflection, but I was on the other side of a two-way mirror. I didn’t want to look like her, after seeing her twist and Read more
In Response to the Tragedy
They say destruction is a form of creation and God knows we’ve had enough devastation to last us three or four lifetimes— so we spin, moving faster and faster not just to forget about the despair but maybe also to see if we build up enough velocity, will something stick Read more
Stumbling Block
When he found you, you were like a caretaker of living vines. You walked free up and down rows of collected lives, learning their ways, seeing the value in their twists and turns. He licked his lips, shook his jailhouse key in anticipation of the mayhem he would bring your Read more
WHEN YOU ARRIVE
You have wandered this road for a long time. You have left versions of yourself along the way, like sluffed off skins of earlier snakes. There are times when longing pulls you back to examine the scraps of tissue paper skin that hint at the nature of these other selves. Read more
Loneliness Looks Like Hunger
For a while, you lived in a room without a TV Or a garbage disposal, and it was so quiet You heard the refrigerator moan, two dogs Barking at each other in the alley, somebody On the roof watering. You’ve been alone all day Except for 10 minutes when the Read more
Shapeshifting
The shape of heavy tears streaking down, earthwards, journeying to find our loved ones faces, again The shape of trembling lips the very moment we recall their forevermore absence as we write the date, on this day their birthday The shape of the book on the shelf in the store, Read more