I met a man. It was during the winter months leading up to spring 1994. It wasn’t that type of meeting-a-guy situation, it was purely business, and for the sake of art.

I was twenty-two years old and had been dancing professionally for about four years. I was part of a dance company that performed traditional dances from the African diaspora.

Dear Mom,

As you know, I’ve been wearing glasses since kindergarten. Even though Dad is always trying to get me to take them off for picture taking, you’ll see I’ve managed to keep them on in almost every photo. In my developmental years my glasses were a part of my identity. I was that girl with the ponytail and glasses. I revelled in being identifiable, as if my glasses gave me a reputation.

Dearest You,

I need to peel off my flesh. Just a small slit on the wrist to get things started, then slice it back like puckered chicken skin with a paring knife and fry it in a pan.

Home birth sounds so

Homey! Sweet! Safe from fear!

What a welcome, to bouncing baby

Who will arrive through legs, in arms, home

I am the keeper of the dreams and the memories, the matrix where the generations converge, the record-book held between familial bookends. I am responsible for passing her life on to him that she may continue to live and that he may understand the consequences of history and culture.

It’s Tuesday 23rd January 2001 and I don’t want to go to school. Today is a different day from the ones that have gone before. Every day since Saturday has been a different day from the ones that have gone before.

I heard the words, but they had never really registered. “Remember, no sleep for two year!” my boss warned when I shared the news of my second pregnancy with him.

Some people ask how I became a world traveler. I guess I got it from my mother. She never told us to be curious or seek out new places, but she made anything possible.

I was the youngest of six kids. My dad left to marry our neighbor five doors down when I was in second grade, so though he was nearby, he wasn’t part of my everyday life. He belonged to my best friend now.

Kids have a way of helping you see things clearly. Maybe because they consume so much of your time and energy until all that remains are the essentials? I don’t know how it works, but I know that shortly after the birth of my son, my old dream of becoming a writer suddenly became important to me.

Dear Mom,

I'm enjoying a cigarette on my rooftop. I'm sorry that, as an all knowing thirteen-year-old, I told you how to live. It's funny how much changes in ten years. The older I get the more I understand your stress and anxiety. I remember watching you and thinking, "Why can't you just be strong for me?"

It’s a filthy place, the inside of his mind, but I’ve forced myself to wade through the sewage of his thoughts.

He followed me for a block, waiting until we were somewhere with less traffic.

I am cerebral person, I have to think about things, rationalize them, untangle them, for a long time after they happen. Even if it’s torture. Even if it’s pointless.

If you met me now, you probably wouldn’t think I was the sort of girl who allowed boys to walk over her and treat her like shit. You might not even think I was the sort of girl who liked boys. With cropped hair and flannel shirts, I’ve done all I can to deter men from taking an interest. But a few years ago, when my hair was long and curly and my self-esteem was pretty much at rock bottom, I let a series of men trample over my self-worth.

I am not allowed to be angry. I don’t mean I’m not allowed to yell or break things or act out, though that is strictly forbidden as well. I mean I am not allowed to feel the emotion itself. It has no place in my being, no space it can comfortably take up. Instead, it squeezes into other homes, transforms into anxiety or rejection or, a personal favorite, self-loathing.

Rage enveloped me in my mother’s womb. It bathed me in amniotic fluid that permeated my cells, and developed who I was about to become. The origin of this rage could have evolved from my mother’s life events. My mother from Japan, who immigrated to America a decade after WWII ended. Whose legs carried her as she and her family ran from their house after it was bombed and burned to the ground, barely making it out alive.

It all comes down to an email.
You're not welcome back without a letter,
explaining your illness.

It was a Sunday in September and I was nursing one of the worst hangovers I’d had since college. Hours of restless sleep, lying completely still on my back in the dark, choking down stale crackers only to lose them again a few moments later; this became the day’s very unwelcome routine.

It all started last March. I was looking out the window while driving to a regular doctor appointment. It was a gloomy morning. I looked at the road and saw all the cows and farms on the country road that led me to the doctor’s office.

Leaving cardiac rehab, I don’t know yet that I will binge today. It’s after the binge that I realize it was a shadow clinging to my heel since I opened my eyes and stumbled to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth.

I remember the day I started taking antidepressants. I waited a couple days after picking up the prescription, partially in denial and partially terrified. I was a teacher at the time and had arrived at school early, scrambling to get some-sort-of-ready for the day.

My firstborn was a seven pound preemie. He was born at thirty-five and a half weeks, barely qualifying for the moniker. I only use it in air quotes, out of respect for the mothers of what I call real preemies.