The siren song of my anxiety trills three minutes after you close the door. Will I know, when you’re gone?

The city has dug up the bush that encroached upon the sidewalk that the old woman peed behind last month.

Writing is not hard–spelling, grammar, syntax, commas– not hard. Paying attention is hard. Being fully aware of how many leaves were yesterday green and are today yellow. It’s exhausting. This bearing witness to–for–the world.

I set my machines a-go—lit-bot, Roomba, dishwasher—before I leave to walk the manmade trails among these invasive vines.

Fall arrived on a sneeze last Tuesday. Blue sky. Yellow Sun. Cool breeze. And the hint of burn on the leaves.

“Are you wearing rose-tinted glasses?” “Yes. I am. I paid good money for these, for the end of the world.”

our children are all bruised fruit. We, as mothers, yearn to remove their skin to wear–to love– them ripe again.

Why is that so ludicrous? Is it harder to imagine him as her or to credit his genius to “Anonymous”?

We pay them to sacrifice their teeth to a made-up fairy. Whose belief are we buying? What’s that even about?