Bittersweet Candy

Some of my first memories of giving, or rather receiving, are of my grandfather giving me candy. My grandfather always pulls treasures out of his droopy pants, wide and concealing like a magician’s cloth. Under this cloth hides his shockingly thin body, as well as the timeline of the rather ritualistic candy distribution, always managing to

Hide and Seek

I crept into the dark, vacant stairwell, the source of many family ghost stories and nightmares. The wind vibrated through the walls. The ocean was so close I could hear its hum even here. Time felt slower in the dark, I couldn’t see the change of things, flies in the dust or the dandelion behind

Lament of Demeter

Among the silks, I felt for a bare arm. Among the racks of silk and chiffon, I felt for an arm that would be propped tenderly beside the body it belonged to, a body trying to make itself stand in the way of a whisper, or as translucent: a body that was hiding. My fingers

Candle Soup

The sterile metal of the needle pushed against my skin. It probed the quivering tissue, like a ripe grape. Then with skin pillowing around the tip, it sank beneath the surface. I suppressed a wince. It wasn’t so much the needle as what I knew was waiting for me in the next hour: crushing immobility