LIKE A BIRD

nothing is as important as honor was ringing in my ears. Nothing. It was as if all the years of advice had led me to this point. Had he always wanted to throw me out? And did she always want to let him? I didn’t care about his mind anymore, the way it broke my spirit to see him stumble on the easiest pronunciations or the small, tempered shake his hands were now rhythmed with. I didn’t care. My grief knew no limits, too, yet now it was being yanked like a weed out of the topsoil.

As I began to move about my room—their room now—my mother wheezed into the wall opposite from me. I felt sick watching her cry. There was no room inside me for sympathy.

(Unnamed Press, September 15)