Surprise

The cat has been keeping me up. Every hour or two, she cries. Sometimes she yowls out in the hall, making me fear my roommates will be disturbed, sometimes she sits on the floor next to my bed and cries. “Miranda, come here,” I have to say, pat the bed, she jumps up, I arrange […]

To Stop

It’s like I have a grenade in my pocket. Or I hold a fussy baby as we hide in a closet from the zombies. My brain, it cannot be trusted. So do I act calm? Sure. I have to. I had this new thought, this round, maybe this is what I am really afraid of: […]

Blind

Maybe all girls go through a Helen Keller phase. Girlhood to womanhood, puberty, necessitates a going within, or a numbness, a disconnect from words. I read Helen Keller’s book, or a children’s version of it, and the way Annie Sullivan was able to reach her! The way Helen had all these thoughtful things inside that […]

How It Could Be

Ink comes from ashes and paintbrushes are made of fur. The good ones, my teacher said, are horsehair. I caressed my brush, the long, thick soft fur, and it was only because other people were there I didn’t run it across my lips. A soft paintbrush or an apricot, he two most beautiful feelings on […]