There's less of it than there used to be. I have grown older but I have shed, not gained; the clothes I own, clothes that have traveled continents and oceans, are baggy and misshapen. The rug I loved is dusty and stained.
There is less of it, but more of me. My hair is longer and my abdomen is larger -- I'm swollen with memory, stories. Most of them aren't mine.
"For a time, every shirt she wore had the picture of a ferret ironed onto it."
"He was, as an eight-year-old, briefly kept in a small glass box at the back of his math classroom. He had been instructing the other children, and the teacher thought it was best to contain him, so he would sit there, among the paintbrushes and drum kits. He was not allowed to drum."
"Her parents were married in secret. Her father needed a green card, and her mother, although she didn't love him, didn't think anyone would find out."
"They stole the large, unwieldy sign in the night. When the cops drove by, they dropped it in the weeds and ran, returning later for it. No one knows why."
"Her brothers made her kill animals. Think about it."
"We set all the alcohol in the house on the kitchen table and then sat around it as the sun set. In the twilight, our faces grew dark; we didn't know what to talk about -- we knew only that we were here, as we had been, and soon we would not be, and that this was the best way, out of all ways, to deal with that."
After it all, I am thankful for this - the portability of stories, and for you all, out there somewhere, making more.
