At My Mom’s Birthday They Said I Didn’t Belong So I Stayed Quiet and By Morning Everything Had Changed

applied in lazy loops. A bow for the camera. The flower pot by the front steps kicked over for good measure, terracotta shattering across the concrete.

I called my father’s cousin Ray, who was the closest thing I had to a parent since my father died and who kept plywood in his truck for storm season and who arrived in under thirty minutes and boarded continue reading …