Mama always tells me there’s nothing in this life worth crying for, but she cries every time I leave and every time I come back.

It burned my shoulder, having spat out from a small red flame. A small hole in my shoulder, all black and charred around the edges.

The day I learned that I thought about women differently, Nora Hannon scurried into math class, her face buried in her binder. Nora was a

I can’t tell you if I want to fall in love with one person. That information has not been disclosed to me. I once thought

My phone buzzes like a rude bumblebee on the nightstand as I lace up my boots, pull a distressed, oversized tee over my head, and

Crumbling on the banks of a lake in northern Appalachia sits a cabin that belonged to my grandmother. At this moment, hunched in front of

At a state tax commission meeting in Pittsburgh, Joe stood out among the tax nerds. Tall and lithe with wavy locks that fell across his

Even before my daughter Isabel died, my spouse and I were struggling. We seemed incapable of working through anything.  Karen was downstairs when I took

I burned the toast, the first task he gave me. I’d never burned toast before, but around him I was always burning things.  I burned

Photos are the currency of our online affair. Brinkmanship. A coy smile quickly progresses to a yielding neck becomes bared breasts. We up the ante

In my earliest memory, my three or maybe four-year-old-self sits on the cement steps of my first home in a shimmery dress, the color of

“We won’t be seeing Grandpa anymore,” Dad said. His Texas Ranger mustache twitched, as if it regretted letting the words out of his mouth.  

Among my 6-year-old son’s many rituals, his meticulous consumption of fruit snacks remains the most consistent. After I help him open the bag, he gets

I was nineteen years old when I fell in love with my husband. That was thirty-one years ago, and the sensations of love at first

First winter break in college.  I am back at home in Chinatown from the University of Southern California, having picked up a few table manners