On the midnight drive back to Georgetown from the Waco hospital, my sister slept in the passenger seat. Our mom was days away from her final ones and we made the trek each day, an hour each direction, just to visit her bloated, jaundiced body.

I thought if I held onto you tight enough maybe you wouldn't go. Yet here I am white knuckles and cramping palms, feeling you start to fade

Only after the candles have been blown out, the presents are opened, and Jake is sleeping happily in his bed, will I allow myself to fall apart, to be sad about the other little boy who should be celebrating with us.

she ignores it for now / they do, too / she did the same thing with her own mother /parsing out time / allowing space before eliminating

The woman stiffened. Her eyes settled on mine and as they did, I shivered. She spoke. “They’re tricking me,” she said. “Every one of them. They’re tricking me.”

I covered my body with a shell impenetrable to the stares of men impervious to the arrows slung by friend and foe alike.