She introduces me to Ann Packer and revives my appreciation for Anne Tyler; I offer her Carol Shields and Tessa Hadley. She doesn’t share my fervor for Virginia Woolf, and I’m unimpressed with Reynolds Price, but we agree on Alice Munro. We call ourselves a book club of two and anticipate each spirited discussion and critique.

& i still remember telling my mom randomly as a kid that even though i’m a boy i sometimes feel more like a girl, & we were in the car, stopped at a light or something, & she didn’t say anything but that was maybe better in the long run,

I mourn the present because everything remained the same, even if things didn’t. My real friends don’t shun me but I still sew my lips shut after every inconvenience. I still deprive myself from that extra scoop of buttered pecan ice-cream, even if I lost the weight. The flag is drenched with its rainbow hue yet the monochrome is still imprinted within. My yearning is still there - my wants are still invaded by my needs and my nails have not grown back yet.

he sight of the water fills me with life. It moves rhythmically, caresses the sand with its arms, the sand knows that it’ll return just as it retracts, and it comes back, comes back, comes back. How a comfort it must be, to know that the feeling of pleasure and love is just a second away, forever. How soothing.

I imagine Θἐο Jim in his doctor’s garb, greeting expectant mothers, the rose in their cheeks, the fathers calling him Dr. Geanon, asking about the health of the baby, and him putting a hand on a shoulder assuring the couple it would be all right. The mother pushes, and the father squeezes her hand, and Θἐο puts his hands inside the mother’s canal and cuts the cord. The baby cries, all wet and innocent, a lamb searching for its shepherds, reaching for its mother’s arms. Love rushes out.

In Florida, I made you mad four times. Big times, not like leaving-dirty-dishes-in-the-sink-mad or forgetting-to-pull-out-the-chicken-from-the-freezer-mad. These four times are validated—I’ll give you that.

At the time, these events rarely bothered me. I had my head in the clouds and distractions aplenty. Also, for all my capacity for fantasy, I found it impossible to imagine a different world, a world in which I had a “normal” amount of friends, a world in which I could comfortably talk to people.

There’s a delicious quality about a Southern twang, especially when it’s bouncing off a plastic dartboard and sifting through cigarette smoke. In Eufaula, the backroads claim more than virginities and empty beer cans. They are red clay rivers when it rains and Mars dust dancefloors when it doesn’t.

They were holding it together, most days. They sometimes sported that just-polished-enough look that was code for “unshowered, but I’m here, dammit.” I recognized it because I sported it too, sometimes.

I snuggled in the backseat and resumed listening to the previous album. My bare feet, covered with dried mud, propped on the floor surface. I watched the officers speaking to each other in the front, but couldn't hear them over the music.

For me, the end of last year’s summer didn't stand still. It froze in place. I missed the first two weeks of class. The rest of the month was a rock slide. I was forced to return home, too much on my mind. I was called a drop out by family and friends.

They get up from the couch and return to the kitchen, The Actor continuously apologizing as he puts on his shoes. ‘Would you please stop?’ Rachel says. ‘I’m not heartbroken. Really. I’m just annoyed I have to clean up.’ When he mumbles something about helping out, she tells him, ‘I think that might just make things worse.’

A young man with a confederate flag flipped off Black protestors as his own single counter protest. I even saw a table near campus trying to recruit KKK members on Quad Day, the day where school clubs try to obtain members.

Now, I tried very hard to keep an open mind and refrain from commenting in this group—I didn’t want to get banned before my research was complete. However, after seeing a transphobic post, I couldn’t help it.

I sometimes wonder how we got here, to a place where it’s assumed everything’s replicable. It’s like trying to relive last year’s Cape Cod vacation by combining the same ingredients. Stir together the same family members, rental shack, date of arrival.

Every year, and there have been a lot of them, as the long hot summer nears my birthday in August, the whole Atomic Bomb thing rears its death’s head. It’s time for The Media to drum up anniversarial articles about nukes in general and, at this time of year, the specific war ender, the last two words being key. It did end the war, after all.

Trey took a sip and suddenly I was game. It burned down my throat, fire in my stomach, and back up again to my mouth, making it water. For the rest of the walk I watched them drink, too scared to take any more for myself.

The power shift that took place when she wanted me back in early adulthood both thrilled and angered me. A bulk of childhood rejection still lingered in my body, but I also needed her. My aching fantasy refused to die, the craving of a warm female to look up to and emulate, a mama to hold me close and tell me how loved and special I was, just for being me.