A pot is always boiling over on the stove ( Read more... )

Because she was nervous most of the time, she made lists. She kept a notebook of them: things to do by tomorrow, things to do by Sunday the 25th, things that need to be finished within the next year and a half, things to achieve in eight years (get married, live in a building with 24-hour doorman); books to read, books she should have already read ( Read more... )

When do you leave? he asks me and I tell him, looking for a clean glass. Teeth are not actually made from bone. The first layer is enamel, below that dentin and then pulp. With proper care, teeth can last for life. Animals that mate for life: whales, geese, swans, some kinds of penguins. Are you sad? he asks me and I say yes - no - yes - and then ( Read more... )

California is moving increasingly further away from me, as if the country itself is expanding its riverbanks and fault lines and I wonder if the Grand Canyon, too, is getting deeper and wider and more red with dirt to give room. I used to justify the distance: if I call once a week, I’ve never left; if I check the weather daily, our 20 degrees will ( Read more... )

I want to be something that I'm not: tiny, sad.

Because they had given up, they talked about how things could have been. They played the What If game, but in their version, everything always worked out. "If we had been born into different families, we would have worked out." "If we had more money and time and less space, we would have been perfect." "If we were the same age, we would have lasted ( Read more... )

i don't know. it's not worth it.

( Read more... )

After she found the old camera in the attic, it took two months before she went to the store and bought film. The first picture, a picture of her mother, was spit out all green and gray and foggy. The second picture, taken outside, was of her cat. It was washed out and mostly white. The third picture, the sky with four clouds and a fifth one half ( Read more... )

The pot is always boiling on the stove, boiling over ( Read more... )