inheritance.

Last night I dreamt

the mother of a boy I once knew

stalked me through crowds,

eyes fixed, mouth set.

Then she attacked me in public.

Everyone in the crowd

just stood there, staring.

When I woke, I felt safe.

I knew she was dead—

and so was her son.

Actually, everyone who has ever hurt me,

truly hurt me,

is dead.

Except one.

That’s not some tough-girl flex.

              More like a fun fact.

Eight years ago my mom died.

Yes—everyone who has ever hurt me,

truly hurt me,

is dead.

Except one.

It wasn’t until this morning

I could be honest—with myself,

with others.

All this stuff—my mother,

in her dying days,

curated and selected

just for me—

it’s a burden, not a blessing.

No gift. No inheritance.

Just a continuation I wish to end.

It took me eight years to say no.

To remind myself:

everyone who has ever hurt me,

truly hurt me,

is dead.

Except one.

I am safe.

Safe for now.

I can outlive the worst of them.

unfriendly.

[A man sits down next to a woman and points to the tattoo on her arm.]

Man: What’s that say?

[She looks down at her arm.]

Woman: It says, “It was a boundless place to me and silenced as the awful sea.”

It’s matching—with a friend. I testified in her father’s trial. Prison. He’s out now.

It’s from a poem by Emily Dickinson. It’s called “He Touched Me, So I Live to Know.”

Actually, like—none of Emily Dickinson’s poems have real titles. They’re just known by their first lines because she never named them.

Imagine that—so many creations unnamed. People just calling them by the first thing they ever said.

What if I were called by my first line?

Like, the first sentence that would tell the whole story of me.

What would that sentence be?"

[Pause. She looks back at him]

Maybe something like… I do not want to talk to you. Yes. You.

I do not want to talk about what’s on my body with you.

I wanted one evening without a single hint of you—and the likes of you.

I wanted a night to just exist, without bother.

Man: God, you’re such an unfriendly bitch.

Woman (yelling as he scampers off): AND THE IMAGE IS A LITTLE BOY FISHING—HUCKLEBERRY FINN STYLE!

[Another man enters, sits down next to her, and points to the tattoo on her arm.]

Man: What’s that say?

E-mail from Instagram

Did you request this password reset?

It’s for an account I haven’t used

since the divorce—nine years ago.

Did I request this password reset? No.

What stalker, or ghost, tries to peer in?

Don't look for meaning; make meaning.

Cull the Stones

There’s a Super Full Moon in Taurus on Wednesday—the biggest the moon will appear all year. Themes of relationship, comfort, care, or whatever. My horoscope: The stability you want starts when you stop settling and start choosing. Whatever that means. 

So I drank a cup of mugwort tea before bed. Does it do anything? Probably not. It’s like my husband eating a handful of blueberries every morning for “antioxidants.” Still, let’s not dismiss the power of placebo.

Last night, I dreamed. I dreamed a lot, but one dream stood out. I attended a wedding—beautiful, radiant. A young groom and an even younger bride. She wore a brand-new designer gown, fitted and breathtaking. For some reason, I walked her down the aisle. I wasn’t a family member, a friend, or even a person. I was the embodiment of her conscience.

In her mind, I saw the scene differently. The dress—she remembered working, saving, researching for hours. All the details she’d taken pride in, she had planned alone. The groom, smiling his boyish, docile grin, believed his grand contribution was recycling cans from the pay bar. He hadn’t even tried.

She had toiled for months to reach this “happy day.” Mon dieu! If joy required this much effort, what would happen when real trials arrived? When the officiant asked if she did—she didn’t. She didn’t want more years of this. Saying yes meant signing up for it for life. Better to back out now—lose a little money, a little respect from the smiling, teary guests blot-blot-blotting their eyes and the photographer snap-snap-snapping every “keepsake moment.” Move on.

Of course, it was only a dream. But dreams are stitched from waking life: experiences, memories, emotions. Maybe the brain is problem-solving, consolidating memory, or maybe it’s just the mugwort tea and the full moon. Maybe it is nothing.

Still, I like to see dreams as messages from the Universe—or God—shedding light on what we cannot otherwise see. Dreams are like your conscience walking you down the aisle, showing every curated detail in a new, harsher light. Perhaps the bride was showing me what I can’t see in my marriages—that sometimes saying no is the truest act of care.

And as the dream faded, I saw my own life. I’m not yet forty and have been married twice. The first time, I was like the young bride who said yes. The second, like the young groom who smiled and let someone else figure it out.

My first marriage was like arriving at work and being told there’s a surprise 5K race today. I’m in uncomfortable shoes and the wrong clothes when the organizers ask, “Would you like a gift?”

“Why, of course!”

And they shackle a rock to my ankle. But it’s a pretty rock—it looks nice—and it’s just 5K! I try to run. People pass me and say, “What a nice rock! You must love it so, to take it all this way!” And I am blistered, tired, last—dragging myself across the finish line hours late. No prize. Only ache. Still, I love that rock. It hardly looks like my body without it attached.

My second marriage was different. A 5K in six months, with a $5,000 allowance for equipment, a gym membership, a personal coach named Dan, and four hours off each day to train. On race day, I could take a taxi if I wanted. I win. I barely lifted a finger.

I love the taxi. I love coasting. But even victory feels hollow. I’m unsatisfied with both dynamics. I want a third way—not the workhorse dragging a load, nor the pampered passenger coasting to the finish.

So now, let’s wake up. This morning, before the alarm, I basked in bed. The softness of the pillow-top mattress, the warmth of blankets, the cool side of the pillow, the purr of a cat—I soak it all in. Perhaps I could be a spouse like a bed: warm, soft, comforting.

Then the alarm rings. First, I must be a spouse who gets up, makes the bed, feeds the cats, scoops the litter boxes. My husband will make coffee, feed the dogs, empty the dishwasher. Maybe I’ll be bed-like once I’m dressed and caffeinated.

While getting ready, I knocked over a box of rocks on my dresser. Too many rocks—amethyst, aventurine, onyx, obsidian, agate, and more. Drusy, cabochon, raw, carved, and so on. I’ve carried them from before my first marriage through both marriages to now.

Stuff is a little like that rock shackled to your ankle. I’ve accumulated too much. On Wednesday, under the Super Full Moon in Taurus, I’ll drink another cup of mugwort tea and set out all my rocks, crystals, and stones—to “charge under the full moon.” Please, let’s not dismiss the power of placebo.

In the morning, I’ll cull the stones. Bury them? Drop them off at a thrift store? Mail them to a friend? Toss them away? Any option is fine.

Yes—blessings upon thee, O city dump! I present a fluorite pillar for you! Return to the earth from which it was cruelly cut! Join the coffee grounds and broken plate, brethren!

C’est la vie. Things that once looked so good—then, with new dream eyes, appear distorted, wrong, and ready to go. I’ve tried the workhorse and the taxi. Now it’s time for a third way—one that isn’t about dragging or coasting, but moving intentionally. The stones I keep, the ones I cull, and the dreams I carry forward will help me figure out what that looks like.

Guess my horoscope is right. The stability I want starts when I stop settling and start choosing. 

I didn't divorce him because he was sick,

but because he wouldn’t do what it took to get well.

I Hate This Stupid Place

While driving, my husband said, “Must be dumbass day.”
He says that a lot when we drive.

As the driver of a Mercedes—phone in hand, either texting or emailing something clearly more important than our lives—drifts across two lanes, he adds, “If stupid were money, Alabama would be rich.”

When we first moved here, I used to defend them. It’s just a different culture, babe. We’re just adjusting.

By the second year, I softened it: It’s not all of them. There are a few decent people.

Now, three years in, I’ll admit it: I hate this stupid fucking place too.

It’s not stupidity in the sense of ignorance—it’s a self-centered, short-sighted oblivion. The kind that hurts others while somehow hurting itself, too. I’m no saint; I understand selfishness. But sometimes, simply considering another person’s well-being benefits you in the long run. These people, yes these people, have their priorities completely akimbo.

I can understand those who make bad choices out of pain—addicts, thieves, cheaters, abusers, the desperate. But this kind of casual cruelty, the thoughtless, everyday kind? I’ll never understand it.

Take our neighbors. Our eighty-something-year-old next-door neighbor—let’s call him John, because that’s his actual name—had his appendix removed this month. That same weekend, his wife, Joyce (also her real name), went on a girls’ trip to the beach.

This is so far removed from how I live my life. I couldn’t imagine leaving my spouse during post-op recovery. Maybe that says more about me than her.

And yet there was John: belly full of stitches, taking antibiotics, keeping company with nothing but the TV and an alarm clock.

Meanwhile, Joyce sipped margaritas with her girlfriends in the sunshine. My husband and I brought over chocolate cake, peanut butter cookies, beef stew, and biscuits. John thanked us, noted he hadn’t remembered to eat much that day, and—just to change the subject—asked if we’d noticed the pile of rocks in the yard across the street.

The next week, Joyce was gone again—off to Nashville with her adult daughter—leaving John alone once more. A year ago, when Joyce had knee replacement surgery, John didn't go anywhere. I guess that marriage only goes one way.

But before you pity John too much, let me clarify—he’s no better.

We also have a neighbor named Kenny. He lives in his childhood home and cared for his mother until she died last year. He has a dog, Newton, who sometimes escapes the yard only to sit right back down on the front porch. Kenny walks with a limp from a car accident in his teens that killed his brother. Whenever John and Joyce are out of town, Kenny limps across the street to get their mail and take out their trash. I would’ve called them friends.

A few weeks ago, Kenny had a taller fence installed, leaving a small pile of broken concrete in his yard. He assumed the city would pick it up—they take branches, leaves, appliances, toilets—so why not rocks? Apparently, they don’t.

Yesterday, John told us he’d called the city on Kenny’s “rock pile.” I hadn’t even noticed it until he pointed it out again. Kenny got fined and had to shovel the concrete into trash cans—then schedule and pay for a special pickup.

I watched my husband help him—one slow scoop at a time—while John’s curtains stayed perfectly still.

What the fuck? Was that little pile of rocks really bothering John so much? Couldn’t he have just knocked on Kenny’s door and talked to the man who takes out his trash? No—he had to tattle like a preschooler.

Imagine what he thinks of our tractor trailer, outdoor cat houses, and whimsical holiday yard décor. But alas, there’s no ordinance against that. He’ll just have to silently hate.

The fucking he gets for the fucking he gave.

When we first moved here, we were excited. The mountains! The restaurants! The shopping! They still had proper, thriving malls. But we didn’t account for the fact that all these lovely places would be filled with sniveling, selfish assholes who make you want to curl up tighter and deeper into your home alone.

Recently, I thought I hated humanity. But that’s not quite true. I just hate these people. And I hate this stupid place.

When we move, I might miss Newton. He looks awful cute sitting on the porch, proud he can jump Kenny’s new, taller fence.