freudenschade

he had memorized her by the filament now (light- in-her-hair. the incandescence of her expressions.), and though he loved her always, and in exposure-- too-smooth hands, those deadflat spots sheared by whichever-emission-- he still mourned the down of their mouths together, and sometimes he kissed her with his eyes open, secretly missing her eyelashes.

- It was Sunday night when Geo climbed into my room from the fire escape. I was painting my toenails and listening to the sounds of the city: police sirens, pulsating bass, the kids in my tenement running guitar riffs back and forth with the street musicians on the sidewalk. That was the year I turned sixteen and took a two-month vow of silence to honor the death of autumn. A premature snow had robbed the season of its delicate warmth and color, forcing the maples to weep their leaves into the gutters. All that rainwater, all that decay. How could anyone create when October was dying outside their windows? Pete and Jake practiced acoustic th

Cooper is twelve years old and a treasure in his tennis whites, and I am unremarkable, eleven, blurred at the edges like some uncertain shoreline.  He only speaks to me because he sees Coach Drown's hands linger too long on my hips when he's teaching me topspins.  We're pairing up, Cooper declares, claiming me from across the court with the wide end of his racquet.  He spends the rest of practice serving straight down the line, aiming to concuss.  Cooper Corentin plays tennis like we're in trenches.  Come on, kid, fight back, he says.  If I were a fucking truck, would you just stand

Cole is eleven.  Age matters in October, when twelve is the only difference between the haunted hayride and the shelled corn sandbox.  Age matters when a boy says the word "shit" in school (and Cole does).  But age doesn't matter when the same boy has both sneakers dangling over the edge of a 250-foot grain silo, his hands sweaty on the rungs, the state of Nebraska breathing vacant and honeyed and infinite below him.  For the first time in his life, Cole can't be quantified by the candles on his last birthday cake.  Cole is young, but today, he is worth saving.  Three facts about Col

(I will never forgive Millais for painting Ophelia calm in the water.  My cousin Noah died shoeless and struggling under a lonely man’s hands, his eyes full of rain runoff.  Real people don’t sink as pretty as oil on canvas: Noah was four feet five on the autopsy slab, no flowers, no frames.  I am ruled by the aesthetic, but I would embrace his every imperfection if it meant having him back.  This clumsy dilettante still loves Noah with the scabs on his shins, sitting sloppy at Sam’s recitals in sneakers and shorts.  Give me the asymmetry of his eyelashes.  For the fir