thirtyfive

The drops of blood on that yellow shirt remind him of the tiny ponds dotting his grandfathers pasture outside Cardiff. He’d visit every summer and most Christmases. The Christmases were best. Meat pies and muddy hillsides. 

His grandmother gave him that shirt.

thirtyfour

Her hair was black and maroon, but not mostly either. Unsure eyes glancing but not seeking, and with probably too much makeup. Surprisingly, she was the type of person to pay attention to the pre-flight safety instruction presentation.

I forgot to ask what her tattoo meant. It’s Hebrew inside a sun on the back of her shoulder.

I think the maroon was dye.

#103

tomorrow my new brother comes. it's not right to hold it against him- the fact that my mother actually wants him. that's the strangest thing- that the adoption agency wouldn't think to check abortion records. i had always been the thorn in my mother's side, the "miracle child" only to my grandparents, and even that was a long time coming.
you'd think she would have stopped drinking after a crazy drunken night ended in me. you'd think she'd have the decency to give me away after a failed attempt on my life. anyone in their right mind could even wonder a half-illiterate woman with an unsurmountable hatred for her biological daughter could possibly be a day away from a son.
ruminate all you want; i've given up on logic.
i began life as a lame duck daughter, i guess that's how i'll end it.

#102 (had 2 98's)

you painstakingly painted every flower in the field. your hands, old, but not with age, still steady as ten years ago, as still and unchanging as ten years from now. each bloom waited, felt your brush, turning yellow turning pink and blue and beautiful, turning toward you.
every flower loves me, loves me not.

#100

he was always the ace of the family. aced tests, learned to fly, got top awards in any academic extracurricular club.
despite all that, life has always been a little over his head. he never really got it. little problems of life, the right thing to say when a girl starts crying over her backstabbing "best" friend, giving the scolded dog a little pat on the head, giving mom an extra minute of peace after coming home from her second job.
she always told me how he was going to get us out of this place. how he would move us away from this neighborhood, somewhere warm for a change. i watched her eyes grow far away, her brave, put-on smile turn to something wistful, wonderfully hopeful.
she truly believed he would save us. if only he was real.

#99

tick, tick, crash.
and hell, now it's all upended. that's what i get for putting my life out there. for getting together with her without any semblance of a plan.
time ticks down, i drive downtown, and is it so fatuous to think i could maintain order?
it wasn't love the way people think of it. she knew it from the start.
emotions change, fall out of place, gather drama and chaos. they are sticky.
tick, tick, crash.
i need a new metronome.

#98

maybe it's because my entire diet is comprised of arabic coffee, water, and the occasional supreme taco with extra sour cream.
maybe it's because i started flushing my ritalin down the toilet at the ripe old age of eight.
sometimes i wonder if it's caused by bad air; this city is so weighted down, it's so thick.

no matter what it is, my heart skips a beat when you walk by.