FLASH
At twenty, the world is yours because you’re beautiful. But never acknowledge your beauty, or it makes you a bitch.
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
The new octopus at the children’s aquarium was named Athena, and as we waited for her to emerge, I thought of the almost-too-faint second line on the pregnancy test three days before.
None speak of how the streets collide in coarse seams like scars, the fresh cobbles unable to level with the ones shaken from their mortar by uncountable seasons.
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
Kate Winslet always reminded me of my mom. Maybe that’s why, even to this day, I get defensive of Rose from Titanic when people call her stupid or shallow…
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
Mama sped along the highway, unbothered by bits of gravel that flew up from the front tires and struck the windshield of the sedan.
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
I reached for my invoice, which Dr. George, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled diaper, dropped into my hand.
The weeks go like this: accepting, horny, hopeful, sad. I’m four different people trying to establish one perspective on a major life event – on the creation of life itself.
On the first day of our new life together, my husband realized that I was not interested in theoretical debate. He said it was okay by him and went out to get some pancake mix.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.