Category: before
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The Past
I’ve been doing some reading, and I know. I know I’m not supposed to put my energy in the past. I need my energy for now and tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow… But. I still have stuff to say. Like how a facebook memory of you annoyed on vacation makes me miss you. Like how I…
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Until she’s 18: A prophesy
Once I stood in our kitchenheld our baby daughterdid our dishesfuming You didn’t helpweren’t a partnerweren’t a parentfrustrating I thought to myselfvery clearlystick it out until she’s 18 beforedivorcing You decided to leavewhen she was 18I guess we make our future while prophesying
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Remember?
Remember when the kids were little and they went to bed, like at a bed time? Sometimes you’d sneak out to the video store and get us a movie, stop by Dairy Queen and get us a blizzard to share. By the time you got home, I was usually done settling everyone in, nursing the…
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Pictures & Puzzles
You used to draw me pictures all the time. Some of them were amazing portraits, or very detailed comics. Some were just silly jokes. They were on paper, cards, napkins, brochures, in books you made me and even scratched on your class handouts. You mailed me puzzles too. Word games that I had to decipher…
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Something to burn
I grabbed a few sheets of paper from the basement to burn.I just really wanted something to burn. I had forgotten about that weird time you forced us to not see each other for a month. I guess red flags are especially hard to see when you are 15. You wrote me a letter on…
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An Ironic Kiss in the Woods
I just remembered that time I cheated on you. You know when I kissed Robin’s boyfriend in the woods? I told you. I know I told you. Didn’t I? Robin was there. She sanctioned the kiss. We were taking a walk, the three of us. She kissed her boyfriend, then told me to, I guess.…
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1997
1997The last year we lived apartI mean, until this year – duhYou made me artArt. I pulled a picture you drew of me out of a box last night. I never liked that pictureI crumpled it up last night. I said to myself, “That was easy”and I laughed about how I didn’t have to spare…
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1993
You gave me this zebra cardMade a joke about “ze-bra”Said “Love Forever”I mean, I was almost 16, so of course I believed you It’s hard to let go, harder than I think it should beBut, I’m trying I always wondered what to do about that box in the basementfull of cards and love lettersbra jokes…
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A Rainbow Bra
When I was 16 I had a rainbow bra.It was Lacy. A lacy rainbow bra. Sounds tackyracymaybe it was. But it was also sexy and fun and I loved it. One day friends were over and I was getting changed. I was in my jeans and my lacy, racy rainbow bra. Gary walked up the…
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Really real?
Sometimes things don’t feel like they could possibly be real. Did Heather really invite my husband over, promising him that their mutual friend, Kitty “loved him? Did he race over to drink wine with them?Did they transfer wine, mouth to mouth?Did Kitty confide that she really wanted to have sex with her ex-boyfriend one more…
Slices of Betrayal 