1 minute read
Jess Parker MOM RAGE
I did not know I had anger issues until I became a mother. Or perhaps I acquired them along with the flaming ball of baby that I made flesh with my flesh and brought forth smoldering.
He was born into disobedience or of it. Once he cried so long and hard, writhing his still soft head away from me which was every inch as far as he could revolt.
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The rage welled up hot and clenched so that I almost dropped him and his stuffed triceratops into his crib like an armful of autumn leaves turned to fire ants. Almost.
Instead, I did nothing and that was the most infuriating thing about being a mother— the inaction, the just one more minute of it all.
Gloria Glau SYNESTHESIA
for once listening to the flesh-soft, cherry-like smell of angels singing. for once conceding the car wasn’t fast, it was the hill that stood purple. for once accepting that ofsoundmindjust means you don’t have to tell the moon to shut up. for once admitting i don’t know the difference between words and advice everywhere being justdowhateveryoneelseisdoing , i thought, for once, drop dead, you know, drop like the liquid color on skin when it gets paper-torn. for once thinking back on those teenage loves screamed by american musician girls that turned out to be about bad fathers, once i learned the lyrics. you see, at first, simuovevanotroppoveloci,which roughly translates to englishisapain . for once acknowledging everything i say is real, although it’s not true and i don’t know how to say it. for instance: i was the victim of an exorcism, the priest shook olive branches shock-full of leaves all over me while shouting in latin about peace, and i wanted to correct him when he got a verb wrong, but i wasn’t sure i was sure. when i say i was the victim of an exorcism i mean i was the priest hovering about the girl, until she calmly stood up and shot me, then walked up to a mirror and perused the sacred hole in her face. speaking or hearing, whichever way, for once grazing and almost missing: you don’t taste like strawberries, you taste like the color red.
