Alexandria Faulkenbury In My Toddler’s Room In my toddler’s room, the internet stalls and sputters and gives up halfway through loading a page on my phone. I drop it into my lap in frustration. The darkness envelopes its illuminated…
Browsing: Prose
Cassie Mannes Murray Round Peg, Square Hole If I was counting it would be thirteen. Feels like a small number, feels young. After walking in the rain, his hood half over one eye like a pirate or a cartoon…
Judgment “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” — “Rating” Mothers “Are you a good witch or a bad witch,” Dorothy asks Glinda, who has no problem naming herself as good. When we apply the…
Blair Hurley Breastfeeding and the Early Sacrifices of Motherhood What they say about early motherhood amnesia is true: the first few months I was a mother are mostly a blur now, and looking back on them, I’m not sure…
Cristi Ackerman Wells My Mother “I was adopted when I was two weeks old.” So goes the beginning of my life story. I have always known I was adopted, but I never knew my biological mother. Her existence…
Starr Davis Strange Fruits My grandma keeps a bowl of oranges on her counter. Petite, luscious mandarins. They always look so perfect. Everything in my grandma’s apartment has always been perfect. It took me years to realize it is…
Heather Lanier Origin Story with Porcelain Duck In my hand is a porcelain duck with turquoise eyes that look like they’d bat if only porcelain duck-eyes could move. It stands, the duck, if you put it on my dresser.…
Cynthia Neely A Sturdy Well Built Home For weeks we watch the white-headed woodpecker whittle out a nest in the once-stout beam or our house, the rotting wood irresistible. A nest that might befit a mate – tempting her…
Donna Peizer The Haircut “Lisa,” I want you to get your hair cut,” I said for the umpteenth time using the voice that insists that mother knows best. My 13-year-old looked at me and sighed, worn down by the…
Sally Quon Bad Mom I should have left the night I told him I was pregnant, when he beat me until I thought for sure I would miscarry. But I was young and scared, living in a city where…