We wake up wearyevery day, bone endspressing against skin turningshoulder blades and kneecaps intosteel-edged parts of someconstruction projectDoorknobsWindow sillsThings to turn and get outrest your chin on and watch the raintake over the lawnbleeding bloody rivers of mudbetween the sad, bedraggledpatches of grass that growbetween your earsWhat is this? That woke us upthe sound of…

It’s one of those days where the sun comes onaggressiveStaring you down as you driveFading out the blue around it andburning off the lacy edgesof the clouds belowWhile you avert your eyes and blinkwaiting to round the next curveso the mountains can swallow it whole beforespitting it out againBrighter than before. Stopped in traffic, the…

Recently, someone found my blog and attempted to comment on a post, comments that had nothing to do what I’d posted and that seemed designed to bring embarrassment to me and my husband. I know the person in question and they’ve acknowledged having multiple complex and hard-to-treat mental disorders, so I simply trashed the comments…

The birds are dropping from the skylike madNot like a rainstorm or anything like that -we aren’t being pummeled with them like hail-but there they liethree or four at a time, maybe fivein the yard, laid outlike someone tossed them thereplanting cropsTwo wings and a head,two wings and a headand so onthe occasional footNo bodiesbeaks…

It started as one of those where you wonderwas it thunderor the rumbling in your mindtrying to keep you from sleepAnd the wind picks up and drivestired branches back to lifesweeping bony fingersalong the wallstrying to hang on to leaveslike precious childrenEyes drift closed and the school bus is a shelterlightning flashing strobes outside the…

My little girl has these little wooden discs –cookies, my friend calls themwith faces on themHer great-aunt got them for her and we play a game with themlay them out on her little kid-sized table”This one is happy,” I say. “Look.”Pointing.”Happy.”She looks, and I offer two more. One happy, one I don’t know,something else. “Which…

This is a filmstrip lifestaccato and silentspliced together,each panel a container for somethingthat should have been forgottenif the soundtrack played alongI’d go insane. This is a filmstrip life, ticking along compelled by ghoststurn the knobturn the knobturn the knobTURNthe fuckingKNOBbitch.The sounds creep in at night,shouting into my earsbehind my shuttered eyesBeg.Cry.Don’t fuckingspeakthinkfeelShut your goddamn trap…

My grandmother’s house smelled likemothballs and GainThe sunlight danced through the windowsin time with the conversation between the hensoutside,down the lane. She bought us cereal that I didn’t realize was grossuntil I bought it on a whimas an adulthoping for some magic.I feel her sometimes at nightin the space between waking and asleepI don’t believe…

I take my daughter for yet anotherevaluationand they take her back alone. The waiting room is bare, dingy floors and hard plastic chairsI kick the metal leg in time with the clockKickTickKickI’ve been here before. It’s been too long and I go to seek her outA maze of hallwaysOpen doors yawning at me “She isn’t…