Healing is not linear. I know. I’d be a fool to think it, I’d be young and dumb to think that growth is more or less a one-off. Grace extending ever outward to the world, save for me: I should be whole, my broken path displayed for all the earth to scoff at. Broken, bloodied…

( ) Protect your child from harm ( ) Give your child food and water every day( ) Do not ever revoke shelter from an 8 year old( ) If possible, refrain from punching children in the chest( ) Do not abandon children on the side of a dirt road because you hate your bitch…

I hate you the least because I still need some semblance of a mother. But I hate you still.

Donna and Joe had a nice house with nothing for children. Donna and Joe were friends with Darwin and we played at the cabin at the lake before he died (before he built that big one) Donna and Joe liked tanning and parties and vodka and water skis. Donna & the bitch were tanning on…

(1) My father’s latest wife collects dogs like tchotchkes. My father must have loved that — more, more, and new. ——— (2) Emily called me once, crying. Pre-2016, because I was still in the city, before I moved away from a place where Emily could call me, crying. Pre-2016, which meant she was still a…

(1) I tore apart your wedding bouquet At the tender age of 9, when you had sent me to live in the basement after the wanted children arrived. You think, I think, that I tore it in anger or hatred, but I was nine. You said to me, ”You can play with my flowers, if…

Oh, I trust that life will torture you back. I cling to that truth with a madness. In fact, look right here. Do you see what I’ve done? I’ve laid out the history. I had to, to heal.The timeline still wobbles but the rest of it’s real. Look, dad. Look here. Remember this one?When you…

I wake up, these days,around half past nine. Zombie walk the dogsin a bedhead and mismatchedshoes. I don’t brush my hair And I don’t care about my neighboursthat much, or at least their opinions.So I don’t brush my hair unlessI have to present myself. JJ comes home around six, so Istart getting ready by five.…

A Firsthand Account of Childhood Abuse

In a wooden cabin perched over the waters of a Quebec lake this summer, my friend and I lounged on an old couch while she tuned her guitar. We were there for the weekend, friendship newly minted, having only met each other the night before. In a desperate attempt to have a social life in…