They Say That Doors Will Open Soon As You Find The Missing Key

When fire eats the corner house, I walk a different way. I don’t like the bones of it, how easily the snow blows through. There…

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Easter, 1991

How many eggs are we supposed to hide now that we’re down one hunter, Karla says. It’s Easter morning, and we’re sitting in the living…

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The Obligatory Grief

Mom will be the first in her family to die in a hospice. It’s my turn to stand vigil, and my hand is wrinkled from…

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Keeping Tigers

My mother took to keeping tigers. The backyard became the enclosure. I couldn’t sleep in my own bed. Too many eyes, tiger eyes, looked at…

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In My Brother’s Bedroom

I stack dingy t-shirts beside my big brother’s bed—red, and green, and gray. No, he says, The order is wrong. Green goes on top, then…

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things that happened before you were orphaned

one day after school you told me you were wiccan, a real-life witch, and that you could do anything, so i hung up the phone,…

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Visit

A few days into their visit, my home starts to look like theirs. Loaves of whole wheat bread line the kitchen table, along with paper…

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The Eighth Wonder of the World Visits the First Wonder of the World

Except he can’t—the stories about not being able to squeeze onto buses, the inability to put him to sleep while sprawled out on an operating…

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Back Then

On Sundays we ate at the taco truck in the Von’s parking lot, took the free tortilla chips and put them over our eyes like…

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Community

In my community there were two theories on death. Both were based on Gompertz. Neither proved adequate in assuaging the large-scale existential concerns that were…

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