Tag: grief
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the Hallway
*CONTENT WARNING* this writing contains the authors experience with suicidal ideation & mental health- reader take care- The first time I considered suicide was the Fall of 2004. I was 23. I didn’t know about Adoptee Remembrance Day (October 30th), Adoption Awareness Month (est. November,1993) or Foster Care Awareness Month (est. May,1988). My “best friend” at…
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Presence
Today I walked and walked and walked all the same sidewalks and neighborly streets I usually do and somehow I knew I would not find a heart stuck in or on the pavement a perfect shadow of light, the perfect pink petal of a flimsy cosmo “not today” something told me and I knew it…
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Verticalities
If the truth stands and the secret dies Why am I still lying on the kitchen floor Of someone else’s heart? Where is my heart? What does it have to say? About me, I mean. Why am I still unable to say the word ‘Mother’ without explaining it? Without experiencing that charge around my…
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becoming water
when it became clear the cancer was going to be the thing to kill her; that the slow growing malignancy in her brain was going to be the thing to carry her away from us, from her body, from the beautiful life she’d created, she booked and kept her annual reservation at a yoga retreat in Costa Rica…
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two by two
stacked rocks fall I stack them again to be sure to be sure. two wicks burn the same candle spirits alight; bodies of fire. ranunculus petals fall one on top of the other like even in death they can’t stand to be apart (even in death.) about these poems a family I don’t know personally…
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Paper-whites
Truthfully, I hoped you’d ask about the Paper-whites. About their 4 x 3-foot patch of soil, about the piece of hand-me-down wrought iron fencing behind them, the single stake with the pointed spade missing between stake 5 and stake 7. I could tell you about my mother, Sandra then and for a few moments at…
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the Scarf
begins a vacant sweater empty, inherited wool itchy and unbecoming easily caught up, I tangle and hang by each thread pilled and snagging on every pattern every thorn I have. the threads expose my inaptitude bring light and shadow to my weakest equilibriums. I find (in time) a pencil eraser worth of footing…
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six-word memoir(s)
I was born an island; seeking. we all have a mother (wound.) I remember: the spilling kitchen sink : shrimp fried rice and cockroach poison : the scent of my father’s cigarettes : Department of Children and Family Services the lie I live, is true. about this writing last week I learned about…
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Merry Christmas Darling
In the shower this morning I reached for the volumizing shampoo and there you were, clear as Chrismas in my mind. And it would be weird except for it’s December and tomorrow’s the 25th so, you know- you’re around. I decided beneath the steady stream of hot city water and rising subtle steam to sing…