Spring 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 2

My newest obsession is watching women do their makeup on TikTok. I wish I didn’t enjoy it as much as I do, but I find it informative, educational, and relaxing. I have to say I am surprised that I enjoy it. I am studying feminist theory for my dissertation, and I often teach my students about the Suffragettes and the gender gap. But I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised because I have a different kind of relationship with femininity. 

Something I inherited from my mom that I didn’t notice until I got older was her style. When I was younger, I saw it as vanity.

It has been a week since the second wave of Covid-19 lashed against my family, taking down all three of us (sparing my feline sibling, Kafka) with its typical symptoms like those of a bout of flu, only augmented several times in terms of variety, and severity.

It still strikes me odd how I can distinctly recall the exact time I lost my sense of smell—probably because I was on a call, that I could steal a quick glance at the time. On May the 6th at six minutes past midnight, my olfactory senses went out of service. I realised this while I was smoking a cigarette (I had still not tested positive back then), a flavoured one, that felt like nothing but a wisp of air to me. Panicking a bit, I tried a different flavour, but it was of no use. Nerves kicking in, I hung up the call, and went inside to spray some room freshener on myself. I know it is a bizarre thing to do, but I was desperate to catch a whiff of that strong lavender that used to fill my room whenever I wanted. Alas, I could not smell a thing. I tried smelling some vaporub, chewed an entire clove-bud, and was finally compelled to arrive at the inevitable conclusion—both my senses of taste and smell were gone.

Nothing to be done.

Christmas. Rose rambles out of the … orangery? Burdines?

Oncology wing? Into the … forest? Cinema? Hospital

“Give me your keys,” Dr. Lintz said, arm outstretched, hand splayed open. She met me in the waiting room of the clinic as I came through the door.

I looked at the dark blue embroidery on her white jacket spelling: “Jan Lintz, P.A.” to her face, determined, stern.

“I saw you walk across the parking lot,” she said, as she wiggled her fingers, “give me your keys.” She didn’t seem mad, but more very serious.

I was in dance class when a mild horror pulled the instructor’s face awry. Her tone was accusatory. “You’re bleeding.”

A thin line of blood trickled down from midway up my thigh. I pressed my hand against the tiny, inconsequential wound until the blood stopped running, but she kept staring at me, her mouth twisting, eyebrows rising. I shrugged. “I just randomly bleed sometimes.” Until I was in my thirties, I thought everyone did.

I can feel the crack of the glow stick in my chest,

Chemical green oozes from one end to the other,

There are two people missing from the graduation party

And one footpath into the woods.

Rule 1: Don’t stick the napkin in your shirt.

If you are old enough to sit at the adult’s table, you can keep your clothes clean. Your grandmother snatches it from your neck and puts it in your lap like a lady.

But your hand slips when you’re slicing into a meatball and the gravy streaks down the blue of your Easter dress. Your grandmother pulls you into the kitchen and pours club soda on the dress while you’re still wearing it. Your aunts pull at handfuls of fabric, scouring them with napkins and wash clothes, but the red streak never completely fades.

Rule 2: No red gravy.

You dread Sundays. You fear chicken parm and cavatellis. You wear black to church and people think you’re making a statement but it’s because you won’t have time to change before dinner.

Grandma didn't always have a crooked finger from arthritis. She didn't always have gouty toes that she would soak in saltwater before achingly slipping into orthopedic shoes. She didn't always have to put drops in her glaucoma eyes and complain that the light was too bright. She didn't always experience heart palpitations and place a nitroglycerin pill under her tongue when her chest hurt. She wasn’t always old.

1. It feels good to be on the move

our roots go sideways

up into our people

not buried in clay

Assume the position. Clamp headphones to right ear, my good ear. Keep perfectly still. Keep everything tight, but not too tight. Strain to quiet my pulse, my breath, my bowels. Pine for a ribbon, a medal, a shitty gold chocolate coin. Brace to win at this game the doctors have made me play every year since I was fifteen.

Say the word, Door

Door.

1. If you leave a person alone with their spiraling anxiety—aware they are incapable of restraining their panic cycle—are you free of responsibility for their eventual breakdown, or are you complicit in their devolving psychosis?

• Is their reassuring response of “I’m fine” genuine or an attempt to dissuade further conversation over their doomscrolling?

• Have they transitioned from reasonable worries of what may happen to them outside (or inside) their homes to completely irrational ones involving the health and well-being of every person on the planet?

• Will your presence within their emotional sphere provide a calming effect?

She spoke/the words we never could. Instead we

swallowed                      (because The Rules said we had to)

suppress our voices     compress             our bodies

                      & shrink.

stickers cover my fingers. i

don’t remember getting out the

sticker book. i

see my own mirrored image

in the reflection of silver wrapping. i

can’t get the pixellated noise

out of my ears. 

The advent of You was foretold by the spectral whinging of springs within the bestained futon. Swampy blue cushions give under the ever-shifting, glimmering claws and bulk of that many-legged, familiar form.

“Nothing is suitable,” You say.

i give the inside of the refrigerator one final examination. Bread, hummus, ultra-filtered chocolate milk. Carbs, protein, sugar; its the raw materials to keep Us going, but none currently desired. i know that putting off eating until tomorrow would only cause further issues.

He didn’t think he could talk to anyone about what he was feeling and didn’t want to ask anyone to listen. It was hard to understand. He would look to God. Even then, he had questions that went unanswered. He would be sharing her words because it was what she wanted. She wanted to make light of what was happening to her – she had seen it before. He didn’t think he could do it.

For three years Alan took care of Dorothy. Helping her wasn’t going to be easy, but giving back to her would have lasting rewards. She asked for a favor. It stemmed from a promise he’d made to her during one of their ‘talks’ years ago. His mama was the only person he believed really knew him. He could share anything with her, without judgement, without argument. And he knew he would do his best to give her whatever he could. Alan was her baby, after all.

As a kid, I wanted to be an owl

So my eyeballs would be static.

It hurt to move them too much

Although sometimes I wished

I could roll them so far

That I would be staring at my brain.

Watching my friends A. and T. have a baby was the most life changing experience of my life. My role changed from close friend to their daughter’s cool aunt. They were the first of my close friends to have a baby and I was excited beyond belief. I bought her toys, clothes and books. I was delighted and proud to be a part of their little family.

T. had a hard time getting pregnant and suffered three miscarriages. It was heartbreaking to watch my friends get excited by a positive pregnancy test only to see them become disappointed once more. T. told me, “If this doesn’t work out we’ll adopt but once you start actually trying to have a baby it feels different.” I let her vent to me as I had no idea what to say. All I could do was support her.

I am living - fully living and alive. I am

in between. It’s just fine. I am not broken-

sometimes, I am broken. I’m forced to change.

to try and fly away the truth that i still remember
my mother coming home drunk after shutting
the bar down after last call—too drunk to get her
keys in the door. i let her in. i was nine.

maybe clever to some to mask sexual dysfunction in
syllables —

on my windowsill, next to the crocheted doilies and dead flowers

there lies a Cold War-era Polish SzM-41M gas mask

with cumbersome misty eyes, gawking like a deep sea fish

flayed rubber scalp and dusty trachea

snaking its valves around the sun-bleached curtain

all that is missing is the lungs;

the E-014 filter cannister, an ugly olive-drab lobe

webbed through with asbestos

has been amputated at my request

the lifeline connects to nothing now

the war is over

the air is safe to breathe