The difference with a place that has been abandoned, though, is that there’s usually something to draw your eye: a spot in the wood that is rotting from age and exposure to moisture, wallpaper that is peeling off, a graffiti tag left behind by someone who had previously explored the space, a rat scurrying into the corner of the room. The Backrooms have nothing. Plain walls, no furniture, nothing to distinguish one hallway from another, and no windows.

She has had to apologize for her skin being too consumable & their color blindness / He has not had to apologize for thinking everything seen is up for consumption.

now i know that you were just as damaged as i was. after all, a narcissist is born from abuse / and he abuses in order to receive the love he fears losing.

Never had I worried so much about making a good impression in the old three-dimensional, pre-pandemic world. But I didn’t meet this guy someplace in person with our body language confirming we liked something about each other, signaling the chemistry. No, here I had to take a chance and lay it out in writing as he had, like a pre-meeting informational dump of personal self-descriptions. 

Because that is what we Black people do in America. We do not retaliate, but bow in fearful respect praying, hoping, pleading with God to let us live yet another day. Asking Him to bring peace within our country because we don’t know how much more we can take. This is Momma’s reality.

What I do remember, though, is that you brought elderberry / supplements and you said to take them once a day, all winter long. / This is how you build a strong immune system. / October is with me again. / You are not.

I waited, / And the sky turned cloudy. / I waited, / And it began to rain.

No one to question about this dark undisclosed act of martyrdom. My heart is scorched like a shrinking raisin. Three more hours and I can call my sister. Three days later she is gone.

The fact that I was able to wake up and love myself caused me to believe that I had a better half walking aimlessly around in this world feeling just the same as I do—often lifeless, which had me concerned. I twitched with euphoria and excitement just considering the idea of being a wife. And I had every desire to meet that man and let him know that I care, and that I will always care.

For the first time since my father’s death, I’ve forgotten. My finger still hovers above his name, ready to make a call. One by one, the long-dormant tears begin to fall, and I can’t help but smile. I cry with a crazy sort of grin on my face because in this moment I only want one thing, and it’s devastating to know I’ll never have it.

I could forgive if you were off to work / to shop to pray not out to lunch with friends / but I struck delete when I recalled / your kiss good-bye and words we vowed to say

So I have a new word and I’m planting a new tree / that grows back from the stump if it ever gets cut down. / Both are called resurrection / and the color is a magenta / the human eye has never seen

She was always destined for greater things, something both she and everyone in her life knew. It was almost inevitable that she would end up near a big city, and so she settled for a liberal arts school an hour outside of Los Angeles and returned to New England only for holiday breaks. Now I was here, at the backdrop where stories were born, and she was nowhere.

I wonder if he knows those are supposed to be my snappable bones, my transparent skin. If he knows I’m supposed to wither away for the sake of being pretty, because anorexia isn’t supposed to be for fifth-grade boys who want to be better at little league football.

You went from my place / of happiest memories to a homicide crime scene / of strangers who tried to love you / quicker than I knew how to cope / with even the move, let alone the loss.

Then the rains came / so hard there seemed no space between the drops - / 50 inches in two days. / We moved the best books to the top shelves, / kept returning to the windows to stare.

Reconnecting with her as a result of writing about our relationship made me realize that a life without love is no life at all, and that those who’ve survived severe childhood trauma continue to live with their pain until the day they die.

“My garden just makes me too sad right now,” I told Josh tearily, inspecting a limp branch on my raspberry bush. Gradually, I stopped suggesting our regular garden strolls with our morning coffee. I didn’t need to see the sunburn on the Meyer lemon to know I had failed.

            Just you and me, us. The stars were even absent but the moon shone upon you, / illuminating the toned back of yours, catching scruffs of your hair in the moonbeam’s tracks. I / was falling all over again but you caught me before my breath did. 

I'm using up our time / afraid to run my fingers across / your shoulder blades, / nestle into the softest part of your neck / feel your chest rise in uneven bursts,