It’s not that you need to know, really—just that I need to say it to someone. I can’t think of the word for it, but we’re learning about it in AP Lang right now. Disconsolate. I have a hard time remembering the definition, but I don’t think that’s it. Whatever. It’s not like it’s a […]
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I awoke to the smell of her cheap perfume filling the air. “Mom?” I asked confused. “Get up,” she growled, scratching the skin of her neck. “Get dressed. I’m taking you somewhere.” She never stayed long unless she needed something, and the previous night she had been in a fight with my stepdad, because […]
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In one of my optimistic fantasies in which I finally am in a position to have kids, I and my partner have eight children between us and having long exhausted my childhood bible of names – Robin and Martha and Noelle and Rachel – and presumably hers too, we look down at our littlest – […]
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‘Let’s talk about neglect.’ Which part? The part where I was two skin shades darker because I never took a bath? I was covered in dirt and grime. Once my skin became reptilian. I was so dirty and dry. The part where the other kids didn’t like me? I cried too much and too randomly […]
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The boy died when he was walking home across the estate he’d walked across a hundred times before. It was a blade, a mistake, an older kid on a bike who thought he was someone else, someone who deserved a knife, deserved to lie there for an hour before he was found. The boy died […]
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May 21st, I wanted to wake up happy and ready to celebrate my husband’s birthday. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I fell into a restless sleep with tears rolling down my face the night before, and the realization that my 15-month-old son was deaf wasn’t any easier to handle as the sun came up. For a […]
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The jewelry company Pandora put together this social experiment to celebrate the uniqueness of women and the special bond between a mother and her child. These kids are the cutest, and all of the moms were obviously moved by the results. The video’s description explains the experiment itself: The children were guided towards the […]
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How do we view people with disabilities? Are we embarrassed by them? Are we embarrassed to speak about them? To play and laugh with them like we would with any other person? Sometimes I think that we show too much sympathy. We want to be supportive, and we are afraid to hurt their feelings; we […]
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I missed out on feeling your handprints, sticky with doughnut frosting, on my face, on the face of my days. I missed out on being your personal dragon slayer, the guard at your childhood door, the one who saw, and did something. Sometimes I go back, and I’m at the kitchen window, and you come […]
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