The Edges of Things
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  • Chariotless God-Kalopsia Literary Journal/CNF
  • The Dead Are Holding Something Back-Prometheus Dreaming/CNF
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  • Me Going Gone-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • For Grief and For Ironing-The Feminine Collective/lyrical prose
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  • At the Mercy of my Own Forgetting-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • The Rent I Pay-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • By the Dead Purple Lady-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Unbearably Gone-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Evidence of a Struggle-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Your Phone Call-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Sylvie of the Stone Stoop-Intermission/poetry
  • Charlie's Assessment-Intermission/poetry
  • Signed, Legally Ryn-Intermission/poetry
  • It's Been Raining-Intermission/poetry
  • Fingerprint Failure-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Bolstered by the Flask-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I Hear Them Bleeding Hope-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I'm Partial-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Inside Out Pain-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Probably Confabulations-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine-poetry
  • Revenant Gloam-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Lies Heavy-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Mark of the Empty-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Barely Aloof-Poet's Haven Digest Anthology, The Distance Between Insanity and Genius/poetry
  • Fata Morgana-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Time Will Spend Us-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I Cannot Make Permanent Things-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Silence Necessary-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Tidally Locked-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
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  • Revenant Gloam-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Swiftly Flying Shadow Bands-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Apostle of Disbelief-Poet's Haven Digest, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night AnthologPublished in The Poet’s Haven Digest Anthology, Strange Land and in The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Measurable Objective-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Cacti Toucher-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Mean Free Path-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I am a Bridge-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Gurney for Me-The Feminine Collective/poetry
  • Just the Other Stuff-The Feminine Collective/poetry
  • A Valid Exit-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetryu
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When the East Wind Comes

Picture
When the East Wind Comes
published in Months to Years Literary Journal, summer 2021

Every second is missing words.
She wants a mirror. And lipstick. I’m taking her on a verbal tour of the aisles of CVS. The list of things she needs is shrinking. The list of things she wants is growing. Some decent food. To leave this place. To not be alone. To maintain some dignity. To wear earrings. The pearl kind. She also demands that I get her rings for her. She really wants her rings. Somehow, we get past my inability to acquire rings.
To be someone or something is to be inextricably bound with what’s other. Ordinary consciousness needs there to be a clear distinction between the knower and the known. The distinction between the world and my mother-in-law is fading.
I pace the room as I question her about deodorant, hairspray, and toothpaste. There’s nowhere to escape from things suddenly not hidden. From the main gathering room, the sound of row, row, row your boat wends down the hallway, where it crawls into my throat and invades my chest and chokes me. Not all words are useful.
“I know just the lipstick to get for you,” I quip.
She tries to stand up from her wheelchair and walk away. This is the third time in twenty minutes, so I strap her in.
She’s sharp in her accusation that it’s my fault she can’t go to CVS.
“You just don’t want to lift me into that SUV of yours.”
Things are always at their most vulnerable when they’re changing, ending. She fumbles uselessly with the strap around her torso.
She swears. “Fuck you.”
The swearing is new. I know what she means, though. She means, “I know this, so fuck off, because it’s just me and this.” Not every word is exquisitely magnificent.
Fucking swear. Then swear some more. Curse the world holding you here and the awful fluorescent green paint on the hallway walls. Curse the chemical targeting of disruptive behaviors, the dry mouth, and the sedation. Curse the sudden injuries that are taking you. Curse those years and years of empty bottles that wouldn’t even speak for you, take care of you, or love you. Drinking takes all of the essential words and all of the worst words out of any reasonable order. Drinking is the tragic epilogue that’s pointless and true before you’ve even lived the chapters.
“You can’t get out of your wheelchair.”
Who created THOSE words?  She swears at me again.
To be this kind of god is to commit these small violences as necessary checks on her abridged body. Any refuge at all would lie in awareness, but she is not aware that she is limited by failing memory and recently broken bones. She doesn’t know that she ends through her own being.
She stares at me, her dark expression utterly untranslatable. Maybe she has remembered to be scared instead of ragey. An unreasoning fear fills me and I imagine that my face betrays that I am just an ambassador of death here to make it easier for a small moment.
I change the subject. “I love that picture of the lake house.”
She glances at the framed picture of her beloved lake house and nods as if she’s just found some missing words.
Her fingers slide off the Velcro straps around her middle and she settles back in her wheelchair, her sweatshirt bunching around the straps.
“At the lake when the east wind comes, the flies will be biting,” she laments.
These words are as beautiful as the whispering, slanderous lie I was crafting that everything was going to be just fine. She’s right, the flies will be biting when the east wind comes.
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  • Something You Don't Know Yet - Chapbook with ShabdAaweg Press
  • Buy Chapbook Something You Don't Know Yet at ShabdAaweg Press
  • About
  • Contact
  • Mouthful of Storm- Wild Roof Journal/lyrical prose
  • This Blood Is Beautiful-Wishbone Words/CNF
  • No One Writes About Agnes-The Red Fez Literary Magazine/CNF
  • Mine-Hearth & Coffin/CNF
  • The Elephants Only I Can See-TMP Magazine, Lyrical Prose
  • Dust-Miniskirt Magazine/CNF
  • The Woman With Mice-Misery Tourism/Fiction
  • How to Wake Up Feeling Dangerous-Anti Heroin Chic Magazine/Poetry
  • Bone World-Prometheus Dreaming/lyrical prose
  • I Know a Wall When I See One - Tangled Locks Journal/CNF
  • Animal Instinct- Pangyrus Literary Magazine/CNF
  • Tick-HerStry/CNF
  • Handler-Anti-Heroine Chic Magazine/CNF
  • When the East Wind Comes-Months to Years Literary Journal/CNF
  • The Man with the Round Tomatoes in the Square Baskets-Prometheus Dreaming/CNF
  • Pandemically Yours
  • Chariotless God-Kalopsia Literary Journal/CNF
  • The Dead Are Holding Something Back-Prometheus Dreaming/CNF
  • The Carving Tree-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Along Third Street-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Me Going Gone-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • For Grief and For Ironing-The Feminine Collective/lyrical prose
  • When the New People Came-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • At the Mercy of my Own Forgetting-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • The Rent I Pay-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • By the Dead Purple Lady-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Unbearably Gone-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Evidence of a Struggle-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Your Phone Call-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Sylvie of the Stone Stoop-Intermission/poetry
  • Charlie's Assessment-Intermission/poetry
  • Signed, Legally Ryn-Intermission/poetry
  • It's Been Raining-Intermission/poetry
  • Fingerprint Failure-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Bolstered by the Flask-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I Hear Them Bleeding Hope-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I'm Partial-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Inside Out Pain-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Probably Confabulations-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine-poetry
  • Revenant Gloam-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Lies Heavy-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Mark of the Empty-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Barely Aloof-Poet's Haven Digest Anthology, The Distance Between Insanity and Genius/poetry
  • Fata Morgana-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Time Will Spend Us-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I Cannot Make Permanent Things-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Silence Necessary-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Tidally Locked-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Blue, I Think-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Revenant Gloam-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Swiftly Flying Shadow Bands-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Apostle of Disbelief-Poet's Haven Digest, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night AnthologPublished in The Poet’s Haven Digest Anthology, Strange Land and in The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Measurable Objective-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Cacti Toucher-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Mean Free Path-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I am a Bridge-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Gurney for Me-The Feminine Collective/poetry
  • Just the Other Stuff-The Feminine Collective/poetry
  • A Valid Exit-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetryu
  • Everything Hard is Tangled-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • On Zillow-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Out by the Shed-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Press