I watch as the world spins.

Lisa is setting up the dining table, a pudgy baby with pink cheeks resting on her hip. My niece has her mothers eyes; big, blue and inquisitive, and her father’s black hair, growing in tufts on the top of her soft skull.

They asked me to hold her, once. I kept thinking about her unformed bones- that self destruct button atop her head- that I would somehow find a wa...

I know as soon as the sun shines through these windows, I have to leave.

I know that soon I’ll be without the caress of her hand, the angles of her body, the sheen of her sweat as she lay across my chest.

There’s things that I won’t miss, of course. Her slightly jagged fingernails, the ugly fuscia lipstick that stains the rims of coffee cups, the wet towel she leaves on the floor after every s...

Can’t you feel it?

Can’t you feel it breaking us?

The secret that you keep has embedded itself between us like a splinter, and the more you hold back the further it wedges itself in.

Don’t you want to be free?

I see it take its toll on you, day after day, week after week. I see the fresh bruises that overlap healing yellow ones, I see the cracks in your lips and the grind of your teeth. Th...