Writing Samples

  • Handsoap

    I haven’t bought handsoap in twelve years twenty-six days.

    My mother always celebrates,

    Every birthdate or holiday. She’d say,

    Buying gifts is harder when your kids grow-up.

    For me there was a guarantee

    Of handsoap.

    Each year she brought a basket of it,

    The luxury kind with decadent scents.

    The gift always lasted until my next event.

    It’s been three hundred ninety-one days

    Since my mother passed away.

    I had to buy handsoap today.

  • Closed Discussion

    I feel small.

    Whether I am or not, I do.

    This imposition to be

    Holds the irony

    That the world deems me

    Not small enough.

    To compare us two

    Would never do justice,

    Because we shouldn’t have to

    Discuss this.

  • Grossery

    When I go to the supermarket, I lift a carton of eggs without buying them just to test the fragility. They rattle in my hands. Then I push my shopping cart with a rusty wheel to the ice cream section. I open the freezers without grabbing a carton, only pressing my finger against frosted glass.

    Something about eggs reminds me of my father and the shells we all walked on around him. The days when he wasn’t violent seemed all the sweeter. But living with him was a bit like putting eggs on a kitchen counter. One always rolled over the edge and

    r a

    c ck

    ed.

    One warm afternoon he sat on the front porch, steaming. The entire house tried to hold itself still. No one knew when it would be all right to move again. I was the youngest, so my brothers sent me out to check his temper.

    I stepped outside and watched him in periphery, afraid to look too close. He stared at the horizon, searching for something that wasn’t there. Chimes rang in the breeze, and it reminded me to breathe. If the wind could move without his permission, then so could I.

    A few minutes until I sat in the chair beside him, summoning courage to speak.

    “Pretty day.”

    He heard me. He didn’t respond. My hands rattled in my lap. Soon it was safe to scurry back inside the house.

    A different time, a year or so later, he knocked on my bedroom door. He wasn’t angry, so I wasn’t scared. A good mood made a good day, if I obeyed.

    He asked me to try on my mother’s wedding dress.

    Even the memories that seemed sweet are like ice cream. The older I get, the less I can stomach them.