Monogamy is buying a gun and watching your lover swallow all the bullets. This is what Leigh Chadwick thinks as she lies in bed, listening to the thunder outside her window. It’s night, late enough to almost be called morning. A streak of light cracks through the blinds. Whenever Leigh Chadwick sees lightning, she imagines …
Wearing white is like carving a bullseye on our bodies, inviting men to spray us just so they can peek at our nipples or the floral etches of our bras, which means the first rule is never to wear white, light pink, or the soft yellow of newborn chicks. While it’s better to steal one …
Every night, my little boy repeats the same things before we leave his room. ‘Cuddle and kiss before you go to bed.’ He tugs my arm towards him, neither of us ready to let go. I kiss his forehead, searching for the scent of his skin, the post-bath softness of him, still unblemished but for …
Horace is twisting again, under my skin. I cup my hand on my pelvis under the candy-striped sheet in the saggy double bed in my parents’ best spare room. My nearly-new husband’s hand joins mine. “Anything to report?” Only the ache. It is hard to recall yesterday’s ache in enough detail to compare it to …
The flesh on his arms, like an overripe banana, peels as I drag my nails upward. Ribbons of crimson appear – thin, jagged trails on his skin. He doesn’t just yell – he shrieks. Not my older brother at all anymore but some strange, feral creature, crying in outrage. His knees spring back from my …
Maybe it had been six months since I followed you out west. Maybe it had been nine. We lived in the little apartment overlooking main street in that sleepy mountain town. I’d watch cars pull to a stop at the light outside the window and think, what the fuck am I doing here? You sold …
He lays across my shins. An odd spot for sure, but he’s a toddler, so everything he does is a bit odd, a bit exploratory, a bit like something I wouldn’t choose. I can feel his heartbeat in the bones of my shins and I have to wonder how this can be comfortable. I raise …
I remember when he slept in my bed, more nights than not, for four months. His evening routine was more meticulous than mine, a feat that was impressive on good days and increasingly annoying on the rest as my toothpaste bill doubled and phone timers interrupted songs from the bathroom. Toothpaste on the brush, start …
Something is hanging heavy over the front desk. Behind it the receptionist wears a crown of lights and sensors. I’ve never seen anything like it. All the patients ask her if she’s alright. A woman-maybe-nurse appears, starts going on about some nameless painkillers with the thickest South Philly accent I’ve ever heard, no, you really …
There is a Hospital Just for Eyes in Old City by Lindsay Hargrave Read More »
It is not, as it so often seems along these seams of you and I, what is the matter with us but rather, what is the matter of us that we are feeling for. It is easy to confuse the two. * You have been promised- the first person– the prayer mat and the prophet. …
Oh Lord of On-going Challenges, I knowest not who thou art but in this time of plague and lockdown, wherefore hast thou bestowed a commercial power washer upon the man next door? Outside his dwelling place are three vans and two BMWs. They sparkle like the stars in the firmament. His front yard is scoured clean …
“I’m on the fence about this one,” my husband says. He looks at me and tugs at the neckline of a navy and turquoise striped sweater. I shake my head and wrinkle my nose. Two piles sit on the bed next to me, keepers folded and donations haphazard. The heater comes on with a whoosh. …