Apparently, I Am Responsible for Myself

"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm." -Abraham Lincoln

Yet again, I come to the blog with no literary motivations and no attempt at prose. And, to make things worse for you, gentle readers, I yet again must begin a crappy little internet diary entry with, “I have no words to explain what I am feeling.” Then proceed to write a whole bunch of words. Perhaps, all in all, the lesson at the center of this dried-up Tootsie Pop, found crusty and clinging to life at the bottom of a purse, is this: 

I am actually a liar.

I have plenty of words.

So let us not begin in the present. Let’s begin in the past, though of course the entirety of the present is just a reflection of the past, so whatever whatever, it’s all chunks of junk in the same soup bowl.

One of the common themes of my childhood, prominent messages, both implicit and explicit, from my mother was that I, a child, was the source of everything wrong with her, a full-grown adult’s, life.

Not some things. Not even many things.

Everything.

Her car was messy? Because I stole all her time she would have cleaned. She hates her job ? She only took it to support me. She gained weight last year? Probably some hormonal imbalance from pregnancy delayed by a decade.

See? Every small and insignificant to big and huge problem in her life was all because I existed.

I existed, and therefore things were wrong.

And I suppose this sounds exaggerative, because it is. See, when she would speak these things into my child ears, she was upset, over the top. She was embellishing to be hurtful. She was saying things a grown woman should never have said to a child, and I was a child who had no way of knowing which parts were true and which parts were just said because she was angry.

It’s strange. I am 38. At my age, my mom had an 11-year-old burden. At least, that’s how she presented it. So perhaps I don’t understand the pressure and stress she was experiencing, as I have no kid. But alas, I’m not getting into all that. It’s too much for a blog post.

And sure, I’m not saying kids aren’t a lot of responsibility. I’m not claiming that for a minute.

Just like I’m not going to claim I am some calm, cool, chill girl who is so easy to get along with. I am not blind and naïve. I know I have flaws. I know that I can be a touch inconsiderate, overwhelming, emotional, sensitive, etc., etc., etc. Whatever. I’m so sick of listing what others say they can’t handle about me.

Handle.

What a word to describe it.

Handle insinuates that there is holding. Noun version: a part of an object used for holding and carrying it. A part designed to be grasped by hand, such as a doorknob, suitcase strap, or mug. Verb version: to touch or hold, lifting or moving an item using your hands; to manage or control; to be responsible for a job, problem, or person.

Yet, it seems—and perhaps I am wrong, as I have no doubt there would be a counterargument—that if you can’t handle me, then that is your failing, not mine. More importantly, at this day and age, have I asked anyone to handle me? This seems to be some self-appointed role, self-selected and self-failing, so don’t pin it on me.

Actually, would we not all be doing a little bit better if you just focused on yourself?

AH HA! Ope. Back it up, Caroline! Heal thyself, physician!

You are right. I have been so, so, so fearful of rejection. I have sought to be liked to the point that I have self-abandoned, grovelled, cared for others until I felt bled dry. I have tried to make myself easier to hold.

Something-something Freudian about love and acceptance being tied to removing all difficulties from another’s life. I don’t think a child being told her existence is the sole source of all her adult caregiver’s problems is a factor. (Sarcasm.)

But you see, let’s expand upon this.

My mother has been dead for nine years.

I know she was wrong. Rationally, I know she was wrong. I know that because I can describe all of this now, from the distance of adulthood, and see the absurdity of placing the weight of a grown woman’s life on a child.

She had some decent qualities, too. Of course she did. But yet again, that’s beyond the scope of this entry. To love and hate someone. To utterly be made, created, formed by another person, yet also reject so much of what they stood for.

We just gotta keep moving through the train of thought. CHOO CHOO. No stops.

Yes, at 38, I have had 20 years out of my mother’s shadow, nine years of her completely not even being in this world, and only 18 legally bound. Of course, this is all approximate. Because, you know, of course I didn’t cut off contact at 18.

Twenty years.

Nine years.

Miles and decades of space.

And still, somehow, I am here, hanging my troubles on another person.

And so here now I present thee with a strange paradox.

Oh no. The irony!

I am doing to a dead woman the same thing she did to me as a child.
Can you believe it?

This is probably that “cycle” and “pattern” and “programming” or whatever whatever they be talking about.

Except I don’t think the answer is that I have to stop blaming my mother.

Maybe she really is to blame for some of it.

Maybe she really did hurt me.

Maybe some of what I carry came directly from her.

I don’t have to rewrite history to take responsibility for what happens next.

Please consider this a wise and fantastic closing. Some lovely transition that ties up all the loose ends and makes it a palatable and satisfying end.

But, as you probably also suspect, this is not an end.

No, this is a beginning.

Somehow, I might be a little better than my mother and do a little different.

And anyhow, even if, let’s just say, she actually IS to blame for my unhappiness, she isn’t coming back from the dead to do anything about it.

So I guess it’s high time I take care of it myself.

Parasocial Paramour.

"Life is made up of desires that seem big and vital one minute, and little and absurd the next. I guess we get what's best for us in the end."

 — Alice Caldwell Rice

"Approach/Avoidance is psychology-speak for repeatedly seeking something out and then running away right before you get it, and it’s a common pattern of behavior around power exchange and kink in general."

— The Dominance Playbook, Anton Fulmer

Over the past five years, I've cycled through crushes which, at least for me and my emotional and mental investment, bordered on much more than just a silly schoolgirl crush. I would pour the cement foundation for a house I couldn't yet afford. I was ready to build a life with them all. Why not? If not for this pesky little marriage I found myself in, we could be together. They were what I wanted!

Through these one-way-road relationships, I would push up to the line of plausible deniability. If I was ever called out, I could claim it was just friendship. But assuredly, I tell you, I flirted openly on the Internet, relying on the safety of multiple state lines to protect me—miles and miles of space between us. I could blame all kinds of external forces for why I wasn't happy. It was all these external things holding me back. Distance. Marriage. Husbands. Boyfriends. Timing. Money.

And over the past few months, these crushes fell away. Fell to the sidelines. Fell apart. They seemed fucking stupid. I didn't love them. Actually, I wasn't even sure how much I really liked them. I liked the idea of being close to the edge but never crossing it.

You know, no one is actually stopping me from cheating but myself. No one is stopping me from leaving my husband for any one of these women but myself. At some point, surely, I was bound to look at myself. Hi! It's me! I'm the problem! It's me.

But is it really a problem? Am I actually a problem?

When I was very young, being the only child of a single mom in the '90s, I was allowed to free roam. Until fourth grade, the only rule was that I be home before dark and never go past where the sidewalk ended (just like the Shel Silverstein poem, you know?).

I remember walking to the end of the sidewalk, looking over my shoulder toward our apartment door, and hovering a single foot over the lush, manicured apartment grass. I touched the tip of my shoe down for barely a second, then lifted it up again. When my mother, through maternal psychic discipline, didn't immediately appear at the door to scold me, I planted one whole foot.

I continued to look back at the door. Nothing.

I made a choice then—to test the limits. If Mom came out, I would lie. I would say that I fell off the sidewalk into the grass.

I planted the second foot.

I was past where the sidewalk ended. I was out of bounds.

For five or ten wild seconds before I returned to the safe cement.

Now, almost forty years old, I realize no one would have stopped me. I could have run in that field. I could have run away. I could have run to Mexico.

But I didn't.

In hindsight, my mother trusted me. I knew it. This allowed me unsupervised freedom. It I was type to bolt, I would have played in a locked house.

Still, I felt wild and ungovernable and bad to the bone from those few seconds.

And I have lived my life like that ever since.

Doing what I have been told to do, but just up against the line. Toes over the line. Testing the hold of the rules. Thinking that I am like a prisoner shifting in handcuffs to see if the latch is really holding, secretly hoping there was a weak point.

But in reality, I am like a child who squirms and protests a hug to test the hold of love. Secretly grateful when the grip tightens.

My love to obey. Flirt with the line. Touch the line. Toe over the line.

But never run.

I read a short story about a man who liked to be tied up for sex. He pulled and tested his constraints to enhance the sensation of being bound. He wanted sex with men, but he didn't want to want it. Being bound freed him to enjoy sex because it freed him from the responsibility of it all. Accountability. Choice. Gone. No longer his. So he could relax into it with the notion that he couldn't run away even if he tried. Blame the ropes.

But ultimately, he was paying a male dom to tie him up and stroke him, so at what point did he start thinking he wasn't laying down the tracks toward his destination?

Deep denial.

The illusion of being trapped and stuck.

At what point do I admit what I want and quit acting like external factors hold me back? Nothing holds me back but myself. I am choosing this.

Years and years telling myself I am trapped, I am stuck, as if I didn't build this world brick by brick. Touching the wall I constructed myself. Labored to make. Ah! If only there wasn't this beautiful fence I commissioned.and paid for myself!

And it wasn't sudden—my seemingly sudden disinterest in these parasocial paramours. But when I finally realized I wasn't stopped by any tangible constraint but my own. Patterns built up evidence.

I probably only ever touched a toe to the grass because I wanted to know I could.

But I returned to the sidewalk because I didn't want to.

It wasn't fear.

It was love.

Even if there is a little fear. 

My want to stay is stronger than my want to run.

My desire to see it through is stronger than my desire for something new.

Fuck, I don't know if that's maturity.

Or fulfillment.

But it's something to think about.

Go to the library? On this, the day I discover Taco Bell, yet again, discontinued the 7-layer burrito?

I'm not sure when exactly, but I know that at some point the whimsy and fun drained from my body. What was left was a crude and rudimentary approximation—like aliens studying sitcoms to decipher how to act human. Everyone knows it’s not quite right, but no one says a thing.

Even now—see how I wrote about enjoying life as if I have never enjoyed a single day of it?

I was such a serious child. The unintended consequence of being an only child raised by a single mom whose friends were all childless. I was surrounded by adults the whole time.

Recently, I've been reading books from my childhood. I don’t always remember the titles, so I describe the books to ChatGPT and it seems to find them with ease.

Oh, the things I remember from books.

Like: there’s a girl who changes into an owl and is in love with her middle-aged science teacher, and I remember her describing his arm hair as a field of wheat. Then she meets a boy who can also turn into an owl and falls in love with him—and he’s the science teacher’s son.

Or: there’s a young girl named Catherine who’s engaged to an old man, and she kills fleas by shaking them onto white sheets and makes soap from lye, and it’s set in medieval or feudal times, or something equally long ago.

Or: it’s told from the point of view of a cat—maybe named Socks—who is adopted by a young couple. I mostly remember that he sits in the lap of a woman who is fat and plump, unlike the couple, and he likes how soft she is.

After ChatGPT gives me the title, I borrow the book from the library and finish it in about three days. A young adult book written at a sixth-grade reading level doesn’t take much time.

At the end, it feels like I’ve finished an excavation of myself. For years I thought I stumbled and fumbled my way to where I am today. No one sets out to be a miserable grey person after all!

But no—the building blocks were always there. They’re written in the books I read and loved as a kid. I was making this woman I am now when I was just a girl.

Yo como tomates.

The past week, my husband has slept more than fourteen hours a day. I said nothing about it.

“They call it an episode,” he said.

Who they are, I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Even if I did, I doubt he’d tell me.

Maybe he calls it an episode but wants the power of plural—they.

Today, as if nothing had happened this week, the light peeked around the earth and shone into our home—a missed companion we both liked.

Yes, today he made pasta. Sauce from scratch. Tomatoes plucked from the garden, still producing in October.

He laughed as I ate.

“You eat like a ravenous beast—or some jungle child raised by wolves.”

I have eaten this way my whole life.

Little echoes of childhood hunger reverberate even now. Reading all those etiquette books in high school did nothing.

Education can’t override instinct.

I eat like the feral cats I feed—touched by past hunger, possibly still harboring a belly full of worms. Each bite only half absorbed.

One of those cats must be outside; our dog barks at the front door.

He laughs again. I haven’t heard him laugh in a week.

I want some more.

“For a dog who doesn’t bark, she sure barks a lot,” he says.

It’s a joke. She’s a rescue from before we married. She didn’t bark before we moved in together—not even at the shelter, unlike the others.

As if my husband had given her permission to use her voice.

Now she barks.

I muse, “I wonder what her life was like before.”

Then I start to imagine: what would make a dog found wandering, pregnant, through the snow of rural Kentucky, not bark?

He interrupts my thoughts.

“It doesn’t matter what her life was like. Just what it is now.”

How I wish that were true.

But it isn’t. The past matters today.

It’s why a boy who was never safe enough to fall fully asleep grows into a man who sleeps so heavily—to keep the thoughts at bay for a week.

It’s why a girl who grew up so hungry can’t waste a second savoring a dinner so beautifully made by her husband.

It’s why a pregnant dog in Kentucky doesn’t bark until she meets these two.

I’ve been done eating fifteen minutes by the time he finishes.

“That was so good, babe,” I say. “I’m glad this episode has passed.”

I really mean it.

Mom's Salmon Patty Recipe

First, you need a can of salmon. In the ’90s, every food pantry box seemed to have one. That might be true—every box we got had a can of salmon. Good protein. Or whatever my mom said. You had to find something good about every handout, or self-pity would be on the horizon.

Open the can and empty it into a bowl. Use your hands to crush the bones. For those who’ve never opened a can of salmon, it’s canned whole—bones and all. Cooking softens them, though they’re still a little crunchy unless you break them up. At this point, my mom would always remind me, “Good calcium. You won’t ever break a bone eating this.” I’m 38 and have never broken a bone, so it must be true.

Then you add an egg. The recipe calls for breadcrumbs or crackers, but we didn’t always have those. Breadcrumbs were surprisingly pricey in the ’90s for just dried, ground-up bread. Mom insisted almost anything would do. No breadcrumbs? No crackers? No problem. Stale bread, cereal, oatmeal, even rice—or rice cakes—worked. Crush it up, mix it into a dough, pat into patties, fry in oil, and eat.

I made salmon patties last night. Same recipe, but now I always have crackers on hand—name-brand and whole wheat. The egg was organic, cage-free, bougie from Costco. Stuff I’m not sure even existed in the ’90s. It feels good to make and eat salmon patties by choice and nostalgia, rather than necessity.

Funny how the things once hated—the scarlet letter “P” for poor of childhood—can, later, become a security blanket. Scarcity turned to comfort, necessity to nostalgia, shame to something I can hold in my hands and eat.

Prison Rules

She was moving because she was getting divorced—carrying boxes into the house of a new guy. She was certain she would marry him, the homeowner, but not yet. Not until her divorce was finalized.

In her hands, a shoebox full of canary yellow envelopes. Uniform in color and size. All addressed to a P.O. Box in Indianapolis. The return address had no name—no first, no last—just a nine-digit number. An inmate number. Red letters stamped the envelopes: INMATE CORRESPONDENCE. A warning followed, noting the contents were subject to examination.

Letters from her father.

Since the '90s, since she was a child, she had carried that box from home to home. Eight homes in total: childhood homes, dorm rooms, apartments, the spare bedroom of her first husband’s family.

She carried them to remember. For proof—if someone ever doubted her. Sharing her childhood felt like being on the witness stand: too many gaps in the story, too fantastic a tale, too few details.

As she walked past the trash can toward the front door of the home she would occupy for the next five years, she paused. The box was suddenly heavy. Her arms hurt.

She no longer cared to prove anything to anyone—because she knew, finally, what was real.

At one point, she had told a therapist that when she was ready to let go of the letters, she would burn them. But that seemed too formal, too dramatic—too meaningful a send-off.

Tossing them in the garbage, like a bloody tampon to live with the cat shit, felt right.

She propped open the lid and flipped the box in. It landed on top of banana peels and grocery sacks of used kitty litter.

She remembered a Sunday morning in the car—eight years old again.

"I don't want to go," the little girl had whined from the passenger seat.

"Now, Carrie, I already promised him," her mother said firmly.

They were supposed to be going to church. But she noticed the route wasn’t familiar. Not a church route. It was a less familiar, yet still known one.

"Are we going to the prison?" Carrie asked. But she already knew the answer.

She didn’t particularly want to go to church—but she definitely didn’t want to go to prison.

They were close. They had passed the sign warning drivers not to pick up hitchhikers.

Around then, her mother would give the usual reminder: Don’t act like a brat.

In the dirt and gravel parking lot, the mother and daughter got out and walked to a small, closet-sized shed by the gate. Inside, a man took their names and license plate number. Her mother always forgot it, so Carrie had to run back to the car, read it out loud, and recite it.

"She’s a really smart girl," her mother would beam, patting her on the shoulder.

The man didn’t acknowledge the compliment. He just pressed a button. A buzzer sounded. The high chain-link fence crowned with barbed wire opened.

"Have a good visit," he said. He said that to all of them. His supervisor called it customer service. He called it a waste of breath when talking to his wife.

Long corridors. A locker room. Her mother surrendered her purse and keys. A few folded bills from her wallet went into a clear sandwich bag.

They entered the women’s side. Female visitors were patted down by female guards, male visitors by male guards—in separate rooms. The women’s side was always crowded. Carrie often thought it would be faster if they could just use the men’s line.

"Arms out," a large woman commanded. They complied.

Metal detector.

Carrie always feared it would go off on her. Why? She didn’t know. But she was always scared she’d do something wrong here.

After inspecting their shoes, the guard turned to the mother.

"What is your relationship with the inmate Thompson? Girlfriend? Wife?"

"Oh no! I'm not dating him."

"Okay, so you're his friend?"

"Not really. I'm here with her—she's his daughter."

"Yes, she is his daughter. I know that. What is your relationship? Court appointed escort?"

The girl looked from face to face as the women squared off over the miscommunication. Why did mom always make it so hard?

Finally, she stepped in, pulling a word from an afternoon TV show she wasn’t supposed to watch.

"She’s his baby mama. I'm his daughter and she is my mother."

Checking a box on her clipboard the guard said, "Oh. Okay. You can proceed. Remember the rules," the guard said, pointing to a large wall of them.

No sitting on laps.

Inmates are not allowed to handle money.

Hands visible on the table.

No yelling.

All clothing, including shoes and jackets, must stay on at all times.

There were more rules, but they were already being escorted toward the visitors' room.

But her mother reviewed the important ones in the car every time:

Don’t tell him anything personal—not your best friend's name, not your school, not your teacher’s name.

Don’t let him touch money.

If we get him a candy bar, you put the dollar in and press the buttons.

Be sure to tell him how well you’re doing in school.

Don’t talk too much.

Don’t talk to anyone but me and him and the guards.

Only answer the guards' questions.

Don’t offer anything extra.

The visiting room wasn’t like on TV. No Plexiglass. No phones. It looked like an elementary school cafeteria—round tables with plastic chairs. A wall of vending machines: candy bars, chips, sodas. A coffee and hot chocolate machine that ground beans before spitting hot liquid into cups that dropped like magic. Always too hot.

Nothing over two dollars.

A mural of a beach scene was crudely painted on plywood and mounted to the wall. After the visit, you and the inmate could pose for a Polaroid in front of it. She had at least seven like that—in the same box that held the letters. Letters from her father. Always addressed to the P.O. Box her mom had opened just for him.

They were directed to a round table.

"Inmate Thompson will be with you shortly."

He approached, escorted by a guard. Her father seemed bigger than last time. As he always said, "Nothing in prison but to work out and read and write letters." His uniform wasn’t black-and-white stripes. It was denim. Levi’s jeans. Levi’s button-up shirt. A sliver of a white undershirt peeked from the collar.

No hugs. Other inmates hugged their visitors, but not him. Not them. No hugs. That was a rule reviewed in the car.

Hands flat on the table where the guards could see them.

"Can I hold your hand?" he asked.

The girl looked at her mother, who gave a small nod. He took her hand. It was heavy. Damp with sweat. She didn’t like it.

A few weeks later, a letter arrived, addressed to her:

“Sorry if your old geezer daddy embarrassed you by holding your hand. I’ll never do it again if you don’t want me to. You’re just growing into such a beautiful young lady. I got a little carried away holding your hand like that. I forget sometimes how grown-up you're getting. You’re not a little kid anymore. Still, you’ll always be my little girl.

I’ve been reading a lot, getting stronger. Stronger than I’ve ever been. Smarter too. You’d be surprised what a man can learn when he’s got nothing but time. When I get out, we’ll have a lot to talk about. Real talks. The way smart people, like us, talk."

She carried that letter for years. But it was instantly obvious—to both her and her mother—that she hadn’t been embarrassed.

Embarrassment is raising your hand in class and getting the answer wrong.

What she felt that day was fear—the uneasy, creeping kind that comes from not knowing exactly why you feel unsafe. At the time, she didn’t fully understand why he was there. Her mother first called it a small incident with drugs. Later, at nine-years-old, she was told the truth.  It had been a yearlong thing with a six-year-old girl.Deep down, Carrie had always known.

After a few silent minutes of hand holding, her mother intervened.

"Hey, Tommy, you want something to eat?"

"Sure," he said, releasing the girl's hand. She followed her parents to the vending machines, relieved.

"Why don’t you help your father, Carrie?" her mother said, handing her the sandwich bag of bills.

"Okay."

"I want a Snickers. That’s A9. And Lay’s chips. I ain’t had those in a while. That’s R3. Can you do that, Carrie? Can’t you, sweetie?" he asked.

The pet name felt uncomfortable. Like wearing a wet swimsuit all day, even if it was just for a second.

"Yeah."

She pulled out a dollar and fed it into the machine. Her small fingers pressed A, then 3.

The machine whirred and dropped a Cookies and Cream bar.

She knew her mistake immediately.

"I’m sorry," she whispered.

"Well, I guess you’ll have to have that candy, Carrie," her mother said, taking the money back. She didn’t particularly want a Cookies and Cream bar, but for the next ten years, everyone would think it was her favorite.

Seeing money change hands, a guard with a gun on his hip stepped closer to watch. Her mother rolled her eyes as if to mockingly say "God forbid an inmate almost touch a dollar bill."

Sighing, the mother said to the inmate:

"I’ll just have to do it myself as usual. You know, she’s smart in other ways. She’s been doing good in school. She's book smart. Like you. What you been reading, Tom?"

Yes, Carrie was smart. Smart enough to carry it all for years—because no one would believe her.

Not when hundreds of men behind those walls shared the same story.

And carrying that weight was the only way for their children to survive.

The Unicorn in the Garden: Fifty-Four Dollars of Memory

Sunday, May 11, 7:38 p.m., text message from Aunt Becky:

"Hi. And happy fur Mother’s Day. I went up to New York City yesterday for a performance. I found a couple of things for you that reminded me of your mother. I also got a $35 henna tattoo."

Me:

"It’s so thoughtful of you to send me something that reminds you of my mom. I’m sure you feel it too—Mother’s Day gets a little weird after your mom’s gone."

Her:

"Yep, it’s weird. And so is Father’s Day when they’re gone—and not having kids to be their mom or have a father person."

She says “fur Mother’s Day” because we’re both childless adult orphans, my aunt and I. But we have cats. The last two Kleins—even if, through marriage, we now have different last names. We orbit each other—tentative, awkward—desperate to connect, and scared to be rejected.

Her trip to the Met on Mother’s Day felt significant. I’ve never been—to the Met or to New York. Certainly not on Mother’s Day.

When her package of mother-relics arrived, I opened it slowly, uncertain of what grief might feel like in bubble wrap. Inside: a mouse pad, an enamel pin, and a greeting card with delicate quilling. Each featured The Unicorn Rests in a Garden, one of the Unicorn Tapestries. The price tags were still on, which meant I knew exactly what it cost her to remember my mother and share those memories with me: fifty-four dollars.

I sent a quick thank-you text. She replied, “It was ironic that I was at The Cloisters on Mother’s Day.”

I had to Google The Cloisters... and then, just to be sure, “ironic.” I texted back, “It was!”—even though I wasn’t convinced it really was. The museum was open, and she was there by choice. Seeing medieval art on Mother’s Day didn’t seem any more ironic than me watching Beavis and Butt-Head that same morning.

Still, something about it struck an angelic chord. Maybe it was the effort. Maybe it was the gesture. Maybe it was simply that someone remembered.

And the things she sent—they felt like my mother. But not the version I knew as an adult. They brought back the woman I vaguely remember as a child. Maybe even the one my aunt knew better: before the bitterness, before the disappointment. A mother who still collected unicorns. Who still believed in magic. A woman who vanished long before she actually died.

That version of my mother is someone I’ve come to grieve in pieces. Unlike Aunt Becky, I have no such relics to offer her—nothing of her mother’s, or even of her. My own mother made sure of that. She spent decades keeping both my aunt and grandmother out of our lives. I was left with only a few cryptic explanations, scattered like breadcrumbs by a wounded, vengeful woman to a trusting, hungry child. They didn’t make sense then. They still don’t.

And yet, I still find myself trying to make sense of it. Maybe family is just complicated. Maybe, as an only child, I’ll never fully grasp the tangled roots of sibling rivalry. My successful aunt—a towering figure—against my struggling single mom.

Or maybe it was more personal: the college boyfriend my mom slept with. The husband she cheered when he got another woman—not my aunt—pregnant. The petty, private feuds that bloomed into lifelong rifts.

I’ll never know the full truth, and maybe that’s the inheritance: an unsolvable puzzle. Still, for all the silence and suspicion, this same aunt—estranged, distant—might have known my mother better than I ever could.

What I do know is this: my mother never went to the Met. Never visited The Cloisters. Never saw the Unicorn Tapestries. Not on Mother’s Day. Not on any day. And she didn’t have $54 to spend in any gift shop. She was not like Aunt Becky.

So what becomes of the unrealized dreams of the dead? Do they linger in the spaces they leave behind?

No. They live in the mess of the living who remain.

They become a mouse pad on my desk.

An enamel pin on my corkboard.

A card too beautiful to send.

A package sent across a silent rift,

a thank-you to an aunt
my mother vowed never to speak to again.

Maybe that’s ironic.

Or maybe it’s just one of grief’s stranger tricks: the only way left to commune with my mother is through the person she tried so hard to erase.

Her legacy lives in me, but only if I tear down what she built to keep others out. And perhaps—though I barely dare say it—I’m starting to admire Aunt Becky. She’s reaching out—in the quiet, in the after—when my mother never did.

Perhaps, someday, I will be at The Cloisters on Mother's Day.
Wouldn't that be ironic?

Skip or Be Skipped

Did you know skipping
is the most efficient way to move—
Soft on knees,
stingy with energy,
faster than it has any right to be.

Jogging?
A lumbering affair.
But still, the neighbors
plod their loops,
faces set like solemn clocks.

Meanwhile,
little girls float by—
ponytails bouncing,
knees like springs—
as if they were born
with the secret
science only just discovered.

Funny, isn’t it?
I tried to skip last night.
My legs forgot the rhythm,
my grown-up frame
too serious to lift off.

When did I lose it—
that airy, laughing motion?
And why did no one tell me
I’d misplaced
something so delightful?

It must have slipped out
quietly,
between errands and emails,
left behind like a mitten
on a classroom floor—
bright red,
forgotten, then missed,
and waiting to be found again.

My Hermit Year (almost halfway through)

"A young person is like the springtime of the year. The full time of the fruit is not yet, but there is promise of the blossom...Know that your life is full of glad promise. Such blessings can be yours, such joys, such wonders, as long as you develop in the sunshine of God's love."

My hermit year, almost
halfway through, is deliciously lonely—
lonely like my only-child childhood,
when a five-minute conversation
could be relived seven times before sundown,
each a different variation—
in the past, in the present,
in some imagined future—
each with a different ending.

The days folded like origami:
cranes, cats, boxes—
moments flaking off
like fish in a church fish fry sandwich,
from a church I’d never been to,
except now, because of a sign by the road
Mother saw.

We always stopped.
Summers were storytime adventures
unbothered by people or plans.
We walked through woods,
built fairy teepees from twigs,
introduced ourselves to ferns
and learned their names.
Reading, reading, reading,
acting out TV scenes—
maybe this is how people behave?

I wanted to understand them—
in the same way I wanted
to understand the opossum’s skeleton
behind a bush,
where I watched the flesh
rot away in the heat
of one lovely, lonely summer.
I learned more from that opossum
than any teacher ever tried to give.

And I’d fall asleep at night
not knowing a single thing
about what I was doing
and feeling that might be okay—
a peace in not needing answers,
just the quiet rhythm of being.
Tonight, I will sleep the same way.

dog-eared

I doubt she remembers. Not the moment, not the day—maybe not even me. At least, not in the way I remember her.

It was sixth grade, early fall, and the school bus rattled like it always did, the scent of vinyl seats and damp backpacks thick in the air. I was sitting alone where the invisibility of adolescence began. She climbed on at her stop—blonde hair, metal-rimmed glasses, sneakers, and a backpack with a single faded pen doodle on the strap. She slid in next to me. Not because she liked me, but because we had assigned seats.

She wasn’t the most popular girl—not even close—but she ranked higher than I on the social ladder we all knew existed. She had friends who knew the latest songs, and she always smelled like shampoo and dryer sheets. A smell that indicated your parents had their shit together. She was in all the AP classes. She was much smarter than I. So much smarter than I that I rarely spoke.

She leaned toward me, her voice low, like she was sharing a secret.

“Have you read the Harry Potter books?” she asked.

My heart stuttered. Words scrambled, failing to sound cool. I said, “I read the first two but not the third yet.”

Her face lit up in this quiet, unexpected way, like she’d been hoping I would say that. “I have the third one,” she said. “You can borrow it if you want.”

I nodded—probably too eagerly. “Yes! That would be awesome.”

The next afternoon, with my mother’s blessing, I crossed the street—sidewalk to sidewalk—heading into a neighborhood I’d only glimpsed from the bus window. The houses looked the same: neat lawns, wind chimes, wreaths on doors. Still, it felt different to see the neighborhood as a pedestrian, walking with a purpose and destination, than just a passenger observing through glass. It was the first time I’d been invited into a classmate’s home.

“My room’s this way,” she said. “The book’s in there.”

I followed her up the stairs, feeling like I’d stepped into a world I only half understood. Her room had soft lighting and a poster I recognized from the book fair. It wasn’t messy, but it wasn’t spotless either—lived-in. Familiar, and not. She picked up the book from her bedside table—is that where she laid her glasses at night, like I did? Her shoes were cock-eyed by the door, laces untied—just like mine always were.

She sat on the edge of her bed, and I hovered until she patted the spot beside her. I sat, not too close. But not far, either. I could feel the warmth of where her arm ended.

“This is Prisoner of Azkaban,” she said, flipping through the pages. “You’ll like the Boggart chapter. It’s creepy. ‘Cat, Rat and Dog’ is cool too.”

“I like rats,” I blurted out.

Why did I say that? Of all possible responses—I picked rats.

She paused, looked at me, and smiled. “Me too.” Her smile was quiet, like rats were something just between us. I told myself I just wanted to be like her. But near her was better.

Then she turned the book over and pointed to the illustration on the back. “That’s Padfoot.”

I blinked. “What’s a Padfoot?”

Her mouth opened like she was about to explain, but then she hesitated. “It’s nothing,” she said quickly. “You’ll see.”

But it wasn’t nothing.

Not when she reread the book—just so we could talk about it.

Not when I ran home, breathless, and started chapter one that same night.

Not when I turned each page with care, holding the spine gently, avoiding creases or smudges like the book was sacred. Was this Harry Potter or was this the Bible?

I didn’t want to return it, and I wanted to return it as quickly as possible. Giving it back might mean the end of something fragile and precious. But I also hoped returning it quickly would show her I valued her time—and her trust. That I was worthy of it. I kept it pristine. Not just for her, but because maybe she’d see me that way too. Maybe I could be someone who mattered.

Not just the weird and quiet girl who shared her bus seat.

But someone who could one day lean in and whisper, “I know who Padfoot is,” and mean it like a shared secret. Like friendship. Like something more than chance.

She may not remember the book she lent me. Or the conversation. Or the way she smiled when I said I liked rats.

But I do.

And it wasn’t nothing.

It was everything.

Everything—like how this memory stays dog-eared in me.

Fuck you, AP Science! [still resentful 25 years later]

Where does love come from?
It must be born from some fragile core,
like the yolk of an egg broken by my careless finger,
its shell dissolved in a vinegar bath—
a lesson on osmosis and change, taught by Mrs. Powers,
who marked me with a D- and wrote,
"Needs to be more patient."

But resentment grows differently,
from expectation—
like the assignment to catch twenty-five species of bugs,
I.D. them, mount them, in one month.
Nothing in my life had lasted
a whole month. So in the final four days,
I scrambled, gluing ants together—
Frankenstein's monster, but with bugs—
trying to make them look like flies, like gnats,
and failed. I was never asked back
to Advanced Placement Science
the next year, because I
"lacked organization."

The next year, sadness took root.
Envy came along, too.
While I was told to try harder,
until I cried,
the girls with A’s suddenly had boyfriends, no time—
I was told it was "just jealousy", but what I felt
was a broken heart, realizing I would never be theirs.

The Family Ties are Family Lies.

I am my mother's daughter,

     but I am also your niece—

An only child torn between sisters,

    a two-headed snake,

       one, a little weaker—

Two stories held side by side,

the same yet so different—

name brand versus knock-off.

    Something’s not there,

       but I cannot decipher what.

    The Truth—Capital T—Truth,

lies forgotten in a cornfield,

    along with my mother's side—

    dead in her grave with her.

   And I, as a child grown, choose

your side, because I need connection

     after that silent start to life.

Playground Confidential

I'll be Superman if you'll be Lois Lane,

Flying you to the monkey bars, teaching you to hang.

When your knees begin to ache, I'll be your doctor,

Patting dirt salve to ease the pain and make it softer.

Scuffing our Mary Janes, spinning 'til we're dizzy,

Sitting in the grass, our skirts soft and flimsy.

No one has to know— if it's just pretend.

This world we’ve built where the magic never ends.

the right to choose is also the right to regret

If It’s a Woman’s Right to Choose—

Am I just my mother’s enduring mistake?
A wrong choice of man, of time, of place—
Too late to turn back. With every breath,
Did I steal another dream from her grasp?
Is what I do meaningful if it should have never been?
Is it  mine if it should have been hers?

Even now, with her years gone,
I bear the weight of who they could have been if not mothers—
My mother, and her mother, and her mother's mother.
Quickly blame "a few cells," as if every body is a burden,
Not a person brimming with potential.
Can’t a bad choice become something good?
To believe mistakes can turn fortuitous
Is the only way I can carry on,
Since I am the mistake of a woman now dead.

If It’s a Woman’s Right to Choose—

What love will I never have in my lifetime?
With this bastardless womb, cause I'm always choosing
What’s deemed right—cherry-picking my desires
Instead of embracing what life naturally gifts?
What dreams linger, never realized, because
I chose myself every damn time? I mourn
The world we’ll never see, the people we’ll never know,
Their dreams lost forever because of me and my choice.

I will never know what is right or what is a mistake.
I will never know the mother I could have been.
I will never know the child I might have had.
Dare I admit I might rather no choice at all?
Too late to turn back. With every breath,
All I can do is carry on—
Carry on the regrets of what was or was not,
Just as women kin before me have done.
But no child after me will carry on — I chose none.

If It’s a Woman’s Right to Choose; It's a Woman's Right to Regret—

birthday

"Happy Birthday"

Tyrone says to me,  

then to you,  

"She's a Libra—  

that means she’s good."  

But I’m too busy,  

on my knees,  

petting his spaniel,  

too caught up to correct.

Only half good.

Then we head  

to the movies,  

my purse filled  

with sneaked-in candy,  

because no matter my age,  

some things never change.

There's a little girl

always inside me

and it's she

who is up to no good.

peppermint wheels

First sick day in a year,  

The room exhales me,  

Breathing me in, humid,  

Like a gilded pair of lungs.  

Near billowing sheets where I lie,  

A bucket, once held to my chest,  

Now only contains my vomit,  

All I had to offer.  

My childhood illnesses linger nearby,

As my dead mother’s distant voice  

Accusing me of faking again.

As if, after a lifetime of trying to get out,

I’d lie to stay in. A felony for a penny gained.  

How many truths of childhood were false?  

A single serving of sugar,  

With a fable on the packet,  

A story sweetened with a teaspoon,  

Spinning peppermint till stripes fade.  

Returned to youth and

The stories I was told,  

Like bricks, built a wall in my chest,  

Proclaiming, "Yes, this is who you are, child."  

Like Tibetan monks who vomit on command,  

Why not a nine-year-old girl?

Yes, for mom, vomit could be faked.

If this is how her brain worked,

What she believed, or an easier

Excuse to an inconvenient child,

I will never know. I will die not knowing.

Was I faking then?  

Am I faking now?  

Have I ever faked?

Questions I can’t answer  

As I email my boss.  

Gone are the days  

Of wondering if I sounded sick enough.  

Crumbling mortar—  

If even one brick is false,  

One story just a tale,  

Tear down the wall, start again,

Build from what I choose,  

For if I am to be made of lies,  

Let them be my own.

childhood

~ TrUaMa ThErApY ~

"Let’s unpack that."

As if it were a box, labeled and packed with care,

or a suitcase, neatly folded—

not like a trash bag,

where my family crammed

clothes, toys, and more,

for moving, vacation, storage,

or the dump—

never to be opened.

It’s all the same.

Let’s discard the whole bag—

before the thin plastic tears & everything spills out!

not prepared for anything here on out

The poet's job is to penetrate and expose

but what if I am just ivy still crawling

up and over a fence my mother built?

Women who've been sexually abused

have higher rates of constipation because

their pelvic muscles are tight and stiff.

Yet, mother said if a man tries to rape me

to just piss my pants, or better, shit. Disgust him.

A cursory porn search shows it might excite.

Another piece of would-be sound advice

                 but the body physically cannot.

how the abuse colors outside the lines of time

 the difference between

      arm over or

    arm under blanket

  too cool then too hot

like being awake

        in bed

mom slamming pots

mom slamming pans

-that's just how it sounds

        to me

            right now
from the other room

without walls

    i'd see it is you 

        you making coffee

        you whistling out the window

        at our bird and bunny friends

        at our yellow zucchini blossoms
spring has sprung in sideways snow.

my mother is dead;

    i am safe in a king bed.

[we bought.]

[you said i could sleep in.] 

nothing has changed

    please tell my Clydesdale heart
which will give out
    or burst out 
        and kill me
that's the difference between

   my weak little child past or

       my big strong adult present

    yet it still sounds the same

from the other room.