smile file

Those moments when she reaches over and grabs my hand. Car rides, planes, plays.

She shared her pain with me. The broken heart, old & heavy, and so familiar.

They tell me their secrets and feel no shame. He wears diapers, she fantasizes about her husband becoming a woman.

The oil stain on the floor board of the trunk, my fingers trace for hours.

He sucked his thumb with sleepy eyes, nuzzled into my neck and fell asleep. Holding this moment tighter.

The x-rays that shouldn’t exist. The memories we shared that you invited yourself into. The things I could never tell.

The look of disappointment and devastation. And the promise I’d fix it all, for him.

The lifeless body in my arms who never had a chance. I wish life got to begin at conception.

The soothing feeling of your breathing on my ear lobes.

The things we do with the tools we use that I never charge.

The pages of notes, diaries, and journals.

Ecstasy of the moments I pretend to forget.

The reality of the past no one needs images of.

The ribs scrapbooking the trips taken without a plan.

Stories I will continue to rewrite without the original illustrator.