I've Been Better

Illustration key: Note the left leg is shorter. Sitting at the Right Hand is hard on a body. Billy Mays would show up 2,000 years too late for Pilate. Pilate would ultimately lose the suit against...

Fast forward faster. Past the marionette months of drain bags and catheter tubes and spiking fevers with an affinity for threes (a.m., one oh). Your arms look overly naked, your unadorned body a...

Philly suburbs, visiting family. You had said screw it. You weren't going to be sad this time. It'll have been 15 years since she died. Enough. This year, we celebrate her.  The stomach ache started...

The river was perfect that day. Mattresses floated with disregard. Futons sank, deservedly so. To be a bed and a couch is already too much, and either way, not a boat. Mattresses, however. Who...

You get no pretty pictures here. Ok? Alright?   You're going home. At least nod so I know you understand. Ok? Good. You got this tube inside you that runs up your arm, across your chest here,...

I’m nine on the family trip to the West Coast, when my aunt confiscates the dead crawfish from the restaurant, wraps it in a cloth napkin. A rule: You can take the napkin if it’s for a dead fish....

“The clocks in here, they're a joke?” “You’re back. “I left?” “For real, dude? Yeah, couple times.” “I needed a second opinion?” “Ha! Oh, you're serious? I'll let you in on something: you'll always...

It starts with a faulty appendix? Wrong. Keep your eyes on the mom. She's dead, it shouldn't be hard. From there, it's anyone's guess. Events, like children, return on their own terms. Maybe this is...