February 2012
1 post
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January 2012
2 posts
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December 2011
5 posts
1 tag
The air isn’t reaching my lungs anymore.
You’re so inconsiderate…
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November 2011
2 posts
my fingers have fallen asleep and my mouth is just as tired
October 2011
2 posts
I write a list of everyone I have ever known
And measure my grief with word count
September 2011
3 posts
1 tag
It’s 5:45AM when the alarm goes off. Followed by a second, the backup. The room is still dark, the shape of him beside me, hazy. Our glasses and cell phones lie beside each other on the bedside table. Under the covers we echo their familiarity. I rub his arms and belly, trying to ease the discomfort that comes with too much work and not enough sleep. His face wears a frown I can now identify...
1 tag
I can remember everything I hear, I have transcribed entire conversations sometimes years later. I tell him this one evening that’s… that’s a really useful ability. Talent, I should say, it’s a talent I wanted to correct him, it is not really a talent. I remember every stupid thing I have ever said. Every cruel thing ever said to me. This is not useful. I should have added...
When you died, we ate the last of your ice cream. Now butterscotch ripple tastes like grief.
August 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Finding Religion
Somewhere on a beach in Quebec, I start digging a hole.
I don’t go swimming with the other campers. I’m not a swimmer. More importantly, as a thirteen year old girl, I’m not a swimsuit wearer. I sit on a shaded part of the beach, next to a patch of grass and a tree. In the sand I find a stick, and using it, begin to dig a hole straight down. I am possessed with the digging,...
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July 2011
1 post
1 tag
When you live in the area where you used to also work, it is inevitable that if you leave your home during the hours of 9 A.M. to 10 P.M., that you will run into people who you used to see on a regular basis. In some instances, they will be people with whom you had very amicable relationship, and in these cases you will engage in small talk.
Small talk invariably begins with the question...
June 2011
4 posts
1 tag
My Grandmother had this dream a few months ago, that her mother came to her bedside looking like her wedding portrait, glowing and beautiful. That she smiled at her. Grammy said she knew then she needed to be prepared, that she would soon go up… She would lift her hand and point to the ceiling when she said this.
I pre-arranged her funeral.
A week ago I had to go home. I had been in her...
1 tag
voices carry
A rhythmically mechanical sound like the rise of a chest, followed by a robotic exhalation sends me to sleep in my grandmother’s chair. Positioned beside her bed, the oxygen machine between us, I curl as best I can given the length and width of me.
As I close my eyes I see her, her own eyes half open but unaware. Hazy. Her legs move now and then under the sheet but otherwise she appears to...
1 tag
diminishing returns
When I was twelve I had a nightmare that my grandmother was killed, I was screaming in my sleep and so she had come to my room to check on me. I woke up and held on to her crying. Shhhhush, she said. She would never leave me.
I mostly sit, a kind of vigil, but with the modern amenities to keep me from obsessing. Audiobooks and television. The chairs are still uncomfortable and I’m sure that...
May 2011
1 post
1 tag
Flash Forward
It seems a good time to mention Flash Forward 2011. Even though I submitted Some of the People I (Don’t) Know for consideration, when the announcement was made I was sure they meant someone else. Neuroses aside, my last name is Martin.
Also I am immediately suspicious of nice things.
You should see my reaction to cuddly puppies. Something like okay, you’re cuddly now, but what if I...
April 2011
2 posts
2 tags
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March 2011
6 posts
3 tags
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our house
There was so much soup. Hundreds of cans lined the basement floor to the right of the stairs, beside the deep freezer and portable gas stove. Behind the makeshift room divider was a tetris-like bulk of bins stacked to the ceiling all the way to the back. Beside that, the creepy part of the basement, the entirety of which could be considered creepy as it was unfinished and littered with debris. It...
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practice
The bridge of my nose won’t stop twitching, last night I cut my thumb in the shower trying to scrape the waitressing callouses off my feet, today, burnt my inner arm straightening my hair. I normally, being a half-heartedly superstitious atheist, would consider these things to be bad omens and go back to bed. Any excuse to go back to bed really. That’s the crux of most modern...
February 2011
6 posts
2 tags
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unlettered
I wasn’t as quick as the other children at school, I couldn’t read for a long time. But I could pretend, I could open a book, find a page and look concentrated as I allowed my vision to blur.
I imagined the trails of the page, blank between each word, and every paragraph, were a map to some treasure. The trick would be divining the right place, the right book, the right page.
I have...
December 2010
2 posts
3 tags
3 tags
November 2010
6 posts
1 tag
I don’t notice I’ve stopped breathing until it seems like it would be a good idea to start again I feel as if my legs are fused together and fall asleep dreaming of the sea
4 tags
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August 2010
3 posts
2 tags
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June 2010
1 post
4 tags
