Category: 100 Words

Day 15: Elementary

Your walk to school has chapters.

The first chapter tells the neighborhood story,
Streets named after girls,
Where you Big Wheel and roller-skate and
Kick horse chestnuts with the frigid toe of your loafer.

The second chapter tells the city story,
With its gridlocked traffic square.
Conversion van, station wagon, or Chevy Camaro,
They pay you no mind.

The third chapter tells the public school story,
Where the high-diving kids go,
The ice cream eaters, the ones who wear jeans
And spit on your knee-socks.

Chapter four, finally, is
The story of your daily invisibility
Behind the tall brown door.

Day 14: Search

Her voice lifts when I tell her who’s calling. We chat a bit about the pitiful, gray rain that was supposed to be a full-on blizzard.

I explain that I need her help finding a document for the bank. “They can’t open the account without it.”

“There’s a file cabinet I could check,” she offers.

I say, “No rush,” though the bank would disagree. I picture her hair draping against her neck, and her small hands with their silver, spinning rings. I imagine us searching the dim attic together in thoughtful silence, the quiet stacks of books keeping my secret.

Halftime Show

Every girl wants to be a flyer. She’s the tiny one who gets thrown, sits at the top of the pyramid, performs the flashy stunt that gets the oohs and aahs. She gets to, you know, fly.

Not me. I’m a base. I’ve got broad shoulders and thighs too thick for flying, see?

But I’m the lucky one. Because that flyer? That doe-eyed, pretty, petal of a girl? She’ll step on my back and climb me. She’ll stand on my shoulders. I’ll toss her, my arms always warm, legs always ready.

She’ll fly with me underneath, waiting to catch her.

Day 12: View From Above

From above,
The trail from my house
To the pocket pond
Is made of X’s.

My boots stamp them in the snow
To make a treasure map
(Think of The Goonies or
That pirate movie with beads and buckles).

Exes,
Who have no idea
What has become of me,
Who track their own paths
Folded in creases on the maps
Of crumpled memory.

Axis,
If you turned it just so,
I’d reach iced spaces upriver
With waterfall names like
Minnehaha or Bridal Veil.

But here, home, eye-level,
My dog sniffs from print to print,
And eats the ones he loves.

Day 11: The Last of Us

My Playstation 4 was a “fuck yeah, I’m done with radiation” gift to myself. I’d heard the raves about Redemption, my daughter wanted Detroit, and we were still in loose lockdown.

There began my dance with The Infected. I started with a flashlight, a pistol, and a partner. I gained a child to smuggle to safety. I leveled up to rifle, bow, and Molotov cocktail; I lost the partner, but earned strength and stealth as I avoided infection and killed (several hundred) enemies.

I finished, not well, but true, and knew what it meant as I began the dance again.

Day 10: Invitation

I probably should have brought my phone for it’s flashlight, but the moon lights the way through my snowy backyard to my neighbor’s house.

I smell yeast bread on the icy air as I approach her back steps.

I only stand in her kitchen for a moment, long enough for her to place the bag in my hands. “Still warm,” she says. I can see six shiny, golden-brown rolls inside.

At home, minutes later, my daughter eats two in a row. “They’re the best I’ve ever had!” And they are, soft, buttery buds of warmth, reminding us were not alone.

Day 9: Trampoline

Mom said “ten more minutes” when I went in to get blankets, and that was at least a half hour ago. Probably. Or, I don’t know, because time isn’t real out here, laying under the stars with my two best friends.

Winter was invented for secrets. I was even keeping the secret from myself. But on the trampoline, each revelation comes with a tiny bounce; we ride and roll and bump together wrapped in quilts, agreeing, giggling, drawing the truth out as if we’re painting it with a brush.

I say I like girls. And the soundtrack of night agrees.

Day 8: Recipe

I have wire crampons for my boots
That help me walk in the snow.
Well.
They’re missing.
In the spot I thought they’d be, next to the shoe rack,
Was a manila folder of recipes
That had slipped off the shelf
And spilled its contents on the floor.
I found Neiman Marcus Brownies,
Turkey Divan, and Cold Peanut Noodles.
I found the wrinkled, yellow legal paper with the heading
“Classic Stuffing Recipe!” which was my mom’s,
Lost for years.
It burned my hand.
I filed it with the others, back on the shelf.
It doesn’t help me walk.
It doesn’t.

Day 7: Country Road

Vivian plays the organ for our church. She lives alone in a two-story white farmhouse, the kind they make horror movies about. Last night, I picked her up and we drove to town.
A half-mile in, she turned up the heat and told me about her son’s accident. He’d only had his car for a month when he fell asleep at the wheel, hit a culvert, and was launched into a treetop, where he hung upside-down by his lap belt.
“The branches cradled that car like a bird’s nest,” she said plainly, her thinning blonde hair fragile as corn silk.

Day 6: Taxi

He and his dark coat and blank face are as far away from me as the back seat will allow.
It’s late; that dour string quartet could put anyone in a mood.
We pass Superior, then Huron. If he doesn’t speak by Grand, I’ll chuckle and say, “Remember that restaurant in Seattle, the one with the waffles?” I’ll reach out my hand.
We were young then, beards brown instead of white.
“Remember how it rained?” I could say.
That taxi was smaller than this one, and full of zydeco. He was wet and shining, breathless.
We ride, in silence, home.