[Enter Name here] By Cynthia Landesberg Placing the paper bag on the end of the cafeteria table, I see the name written in my dad’s thin, slanted handwriting: Cyndy, with…
A Tourist at the Family Table By Lucia Blackwell My niece places a chocolate cupcake on the table and sticks two candles into the slurry of frosting. Her two-year-old daughter…
Nobody's Secret By Akara Skye Two weeks ago, my birth father died. His death should have come as no surprise; he was 86 and in poor health. I found his…
Exist By Rebecca Cheek Trigger Warning: Brief mention of death. “If there was one thing you could do again in life, what would it be?” asked my nine-year-old daughter, unexpectedly…
UNLOCKED By Audrey B Unlocked—Come closer, young one. What are you holding so very tightly?I struggle to answer,fists are clenched,jaw sore from biting my words, not allowing a reply. I look through…
The Gift By Anna Grundström Trigger Warning: Brief mention of self-harm (cutting). I was not the type of gift that came wrapped in pretty paper. Instead, I was packaged in…
A Note to Little Heather ... By Heather Lewis Hello Kitty came out in 1976. I was born 1973. I feel a kindred spirit with her. Cute, Asian, big head…
Why I'm Still Here By Rebecca Cohen I survived.I lived.I grew.Despite the howling void, the nothing place.Despite my landing—ripped from home—in terror made of foreign tongueof never rightof you were…
Ash Wednesday By Julian Washio-Collette “Leave the past in ashes.”What I really want to tell you is—I feel an ache in my heart that gives me no rest. Meet me…
The Poet By Shae Lee Flanked by a 90-year-old writer,rumpled with a jaunty-toothed grinand nimble cornflower eyes,I stood facing a gallery wall of his testimony—rivulets of verse undulating,snaking toward her,beseeching…