The daughter didn't remember the beginning of her life. All she could later rely on was her mother’s idiosyncratic recount (“You and your full head of black hair—like a little lion!”) and the faded photos taken by visitors, as her family didn’t own a camera back then. In the photos her parents looked achingly young, her mother in a mulberry tank top, her father in tight denim shorts, her younger self cradled in their arms, slightly smothered in various layers. The room where some of the photos were taken...
Actually, talking to you tonight, I only got to know the socially constructed you. All I saw was your appearance, your face peeking out from the hair hanging down the sides of your cheeks. The bar’s murky lights sent out flickering signals that crosshatched your dark cocktail and the walls of the cave formed by your hair, illuminating your makeup—like an antique snuff bottle, a fine piece of porcelain set off by two smiling,...
This is how it was for several weeks. I stayed in my room. I ate nothing but apples and pizza. I got lost in the beige clouds of water damage that tinted the ceiling above my bed. Part of me was being lowered beneath my life. Do you ever feel like someone else is there? Not in a bad way, and not unless you really notice? It was like another character in all this...
