Actively trying to be good to other people can get lost in the search for meaning in a person’s day to day. But it’s the “unsexy” stuff, like paying attention to what the people around you might need or being able to step outside of your own “I am the main character in this story” narrative, that lends itself to feeling free.
The Lightning Rod (or, The Celebrity)
Izzy Ampil
You didn’t know I loved you like that, which I admit is my fault. When you threw your racket at the ground so hard you took its shrapnel to the eye, you didn’t call me. It was a week after the tabloids caught you drinking, and you and Mom were barely speaking. I should have been your next in line, the remaining family you trusted. But you told me in the ER, bloody gauze taped to your face, you thought I’d yell at you. You had a red stain where your eye should be.
Shell Casings
Beth Oast Williams
February cracks her frozen
bones around my throat.
Turning blue was my own fault.
Memory of a Song
Kathryn Boudouris
Was it like that for you? Did you ever
hear a note in your daughter’s voice—
a tremor like the first time she fell in love—
and remember her clearly?
Did she suddenly make sense again?
