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Come take your toll
The pollen has been making my eyes droop.Sleepily I tend to sections of itin clumps.Chickadees and woodpeckersand yellow-bellied warblersare indifferent and happy. You say, “You can’t tell me what to do,”as I sign for the check,“But I’d actually like it if you did.” On that dreary Monday,we stack carnationson top of one anotherwhite and red…
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The Limpkin
and what of the Limpkin, roaming (or perhaps looming) in Little Bay Lake. Long skinny legs that seem to creep through shallow waters in stooping steps. An almost equally long beak perfect for nosing at the Apple Snails it seeks. What of it, and its light spotted brown and white feathers and round torso, crying…
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Hymn
It was your child I held in my arms, beneath a sky full of fireworks I wish the stars could match, if we’d let them. When he was smaller, he called me Cwissy. He would’ve said your first name the same way, but you were Dad. Oh, there’s something about names. In your blue eyes,…
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believe while I tremble
“And you came here at 5:55 am. I’m glad you have somewhere to put your feelings, even if it’s just this.”The parking garage is cold when I hug my cousin’s warm body. I don’t tear up because I know I will talk to her again soon. I will plan a trip to see her in…
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whimsies
My cheeks are hot againanger swirling and buildinglike the involuntary pathI take to the top of a pile of rocks.The view of jagged tree limbs anda pond in need of rain andwheatgrass and palms and pine needlesaren’t satisfying enough to pull mefrom the empty cans of hard ciderno doubt from a restless group of teens.Rejection…
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The Moringa Tree
There it came and went. A week of drinking tea. Maybe a week and a half. She thought about it, with an urge to brag. I am not a coffee drinker anymore, she would lie to herself, putting the kettle on. Then she would say “kettle” to no one but the boiling water, with an…
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my city, my
Espresso mascara to brighten my eyes. Speeding on Dale Mabry. Raising my hand in the middle of a conversation, but the words that pour out feel unimportant and stupid. Buttoning up a dress that smells like I wore it already, and by that I mean: orange blossom, amber, soft musk, and the woods. Every season…
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february snow moon
in my left handa green anjou pear,slightly bruised,still believingthe first bite will besweet and soft and wet.sunglasses and keysdangle from careless fingersthat grab too muchin impatience.earlier, I had watchedtwo anhingas diveand swimand furl and unfurl their long necks,trying to remember their nickname:snakebirdwhich is exactly what it looks likeuntil it flies with its companionto the droopiest…
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Rana
Beneath the soft red glow of my kitchen light, as I make my morning coffee, I count the orchid blossoms that have finally fallen as I notice a neighbor (she lives in the apartments across the street) go outside in a long, gray wool coat. There’s a special protectiveness of people hovering around me with…
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little dogs vs big ideas
Yesterday I saw a quote from Toni Morrison circling with lots of reposts and a steady mix of people agreeing with it and people pushing back against it. I don’t know much about Toni Morrison. I searched her and felt simultaneously impressed and intimidated. I tend to flinch at quotes like this because they feel…
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Let’s do some living 🎧
Last night I dreamed I was carrying a white tiger, past the age of being a cub but not yet grown. Her back legs dangled over my side body, toward my bum. Her front legs were more stiff and nestled in my arms. I don’t know where we were walking, but I’ve walked through it…
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In bocca al lupo
A quick physiology lesson on a woman before her period: progesterone drops; serotonin dips; emotional thresholds lower; unmet expectations land harder. Admittedly, one out of four of those things is specific to me. Today, for some reason, my anger feels louder. Anger is just extreme hurt in wolf’s clothing, and I’m so tired of being…
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Spill
I peel the sticky gel snowflakesoff the front windowand notice them in the break-room trashcanfor the rest of the day.Before this,the contents of my coffeeswam in swirls on the countertop,ice scattered through it,and I marked it as the first spill of 2026.A colleague says, “Off to a graceful start, are we?”and my teeth grit together…
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Antechamber
Greetings! from this sealed chamber.I’ve made it tolerably nice in here.You’d never guessI spend the days wonderinghow long I’ve existedwithout you.It’s decent of you to finally decide to open the latch.Did you noticeI put fresh linens over here?And this fragrance that lingers under the oils of pulse points.Won’t you sweep through it?As if your legs…
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2026
Keys rattle gently from the brass doorknob of the backdoor I nearly forgot to grab on my way back upstairs. I stop mid-hurry to notice the stillness of Little Bay Lake in its icy, dark blue state under a holy night sky. Humid air and a restless orchestra of crickets try to make this an…
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The category is: body
I love my body. Not in a posing and flexing, cataloging curves and muscle kind of way.Not in a circa–early-aughts, paper-thin kind of way. Rather, in a movement-adoration kind of way. I first noticed my inner peace with my body in 2014, three weeks into a regular yoga practice in a studio that rewarded our…
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Thought Carousel
Instead of swiping through a photo collection with the caption “Lately!” or “2025,”here are six thoughts from the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Peppermint spirits in my coffee. Arranging my mother’s fresh-baked cookies on her dessert table: Earl Grey shortbread, cranberry almond biscotti, dark chocolate–chocolate chip. Realizing, shit, the paper doilies on the table…
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Under an Ultramarine Sky
Date night at the historic Tampa Theatre. While I hold your hand, I forget there are no cup holders or anywhere to put popcorn here. So off my beverage goes onto the floor. Popcorn must stay nestled in my lap. “The best popcorn you’ll ever taste. Really!” is a true claim. Every bite is the…
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to live for eternity
It’s strange, I don’t remember Thanksgiving much as a family and I’m not sure why. I wasn’t a food-motivated child until grief and separation made me reach for comfort. I don’t think of holidays in terms of sitting around the table and considering what was on my plate. What privilege, I know. I think of…
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“To be lost and to be found, that is the life span of love.”
Ever get so sick of your own brain that the only solution is to dive deeper into what it’s consuming or loving? Yeah, I don’t know what I mean by that either. IT’S A LIST, BABY! 1. A perfume fixation When I was a young girl, my mom worked as a makeup artist for Chanel.…
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Dosing 🎧
I’m sorry it would seemyou intrudedin this moment where my feelings of safety have beenruptured.I have been told, “You are the eldestdaughter, despiteyour birth order.”I’m sorryit would seemyou caught me at capacity.I’ve beenholding a networktogether for too long, and I’d like to stop.I notice sometimes,those one or two line doses feel like icy cool glittering…
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Transluscent Gloves
I’m trying to make sense of what I narrated in my Voice Memo app this morning. I’d like to turn it into something. I keep thinking of translucent gloves: wet and buried in mud. It feels like the stack of unanswered text messages sitting inside my phone, open loops that go against my character. Against…
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Superhero Vaginas
I curse thee algorithm and our phones listening to us. The last ad I saw was: “Your vagina is a superhero.” All because I’m admittedly both curious and interested in learning about perimenopause. I can’t help myself. I know what my hormones do to me thanks to PMDD; I’m not about to finally experience relief…
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the Moon in Leo
Sitting on the cold floor in a patch of warm sunlight, with Gigi circling me.I text my boss, “I’m working from home to watch her.”She’s been on the mend from a pancreatitis flare up, and I think we’re finally in the clear. I kept her (and her seriously stinky butt) out of the crate and…
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Boom Boom Math
This equationhas no resolution.Light floods a roomwith someone who is see-through,and one who looks away.Inside the gaps that feedan undercurrentof creative selfishness,I hopelessly look foran answer that lives insidemy finger makingdoodles across water vapor trapped on glass.Later, on a chilly firewood scented evening,I touch shoulderswith friends.Their laughtergrounding me,reminding meI’m fine with whatI don’t understand.(Daily Writing…
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not being real
From a second-floor balcony, I hear a sneeze that sounds forced and theatrical, followed by a friendly hello.
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Marian’s Bike Rides
She’s become a familiar landmark, like the curves of the road she glides through effortlessly.
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a Death Doula on yearning 🎧
I wonder what she is feeling for, what she is noticing, as I talk at her. Because she is a death doula, we often come to the topic of death, which I find equally soothing as the moment she wraps a heavy hot towel around my neck and face.
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Everglazed
… I see the old couple who have their own Saturday routine. The husband always taps the window and waves excitedly at Gigi, not me, to be perfectly clear.
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Silk Walled World
Beside it rests my childhood bear, which doesn’t strike me as odd. Pappy’s glass eyes seem waterlogged, as if they’ve absorbed a thousand tears.
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my Talisman
And my favorite, a piece of selenite (Satin Spar), sacred to Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon.
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You & Ube & the Sky
You can tell who closed efficiently by the neat rows of chairs, angled just so; other mornings it’s chaos, with paper chef hats and chopsticks scattered for squirrels to drag away.
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The Tower and the Boxer
The night before, the electric in my house kept flickering. One room smelled faintly of smoke. “Costly?” I ask, pushing her to continue.
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Last Nine Days of Poetry Sedation
I left poetry books everywhere. On top of the washing machine and on end tables and bookshelves, not stacked neatly.
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Seven Days of the Sealey Challenge
I diligently read and became entranced by Heather Christle’s The Trees The Trees. Oh, how I saw myself in her roots and her ruthlessness.
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Calm under the waves
The most genuine smile. Her skin, warm-toned like the almonds she kept in a zip-lock bag—raw, unsalted, chewier than I liked. She was the first vegan I ever met. She’d share her soy nuts and say Yummy! like a child. But we were children.
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Tilted
In the distance, a mushroom cloud rises while I’m talking to my mother. “Are we saying goodbye?” I ask, and she tells me to stay inside, take cover.
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hot air & ballrooms
“To coax myself into writing, I sometimes have to start in a completely different place than where I hope to end up.”
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Waiting In the Tall Grass
“It’s amazing how we might return, time and time again, to a place we only might get scraps from.”
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Fortune July
on the Fourth of July, familial love, & joy, despite awareness of broader societal issues.
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why’s it always a weather metaphor? 🎧
on nuanced exploration of hope and anticipation amidst a heavy, silent sky.
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Via del Biscione 🎧
“They people-watch with their chins cupped in their hands, giggling madly at one another every so often when they stretch their necks far enough to catch each other’s stupid faces.”
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Shoes Stay On
A girl came up beside me and said, “I heard you were the person to speak to… about dancing?”
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Skin Therapy
“Not only is she empathizing, she’s already thinking of the sentence that will soothe me. It might be hilarious, or it might be the most grounding thing I need. It’s beautiful, how clearly I can count on that.”
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Buh-Bye
She makes real fruit cocktail. Slices the peaches and the pears and adds pitted cherries and her own homemade juice: fresh squeezed lime and honey, she said, “Something else, I can’t remember.”
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Sleep Demon 🎧
“I walk through the same moonlit hallway, go into the bathroom with the same flickering light, and look at myself in the mirror.”
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Altocumulus 🎧
on emotional tethering and the nature of feelings and CLOUDS.
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Han Solo
He was the baby of our family, and he wanted to be seen and heard. One boy vs. three girls. I remember one time in the mudroom of our grandparents’ home, I was sitting on the couch and he was being playful. He had this small white bear dressed as a clown with spotted dots…
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Would you excuse me? 🎧
I was about to log my period when it hit me: someday I’ll be an older woman, and my period will be long gone, and I’ll think, “I remember how much I hated that damn period app, and now I miss it.” I stood in my kitchen and marked my thought by saying out loud,…
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The Watermelon Dome 🎧
The outside smells like when we were talking. Musty grass. Spring giving into summer faster than most regions. The gardenia tree next door releasing its scent. Or maybe it’s the perfume I wore last year around this time. Warm and lingering on my neck, rose and blueberry and magnolia. In the watermelon dome, our skin…
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Beth’s Son
Don’t tell my clients, but I have favorites. Scott, age 70, with his Southern-wilted voice and firebrand progressive opinions (a welcome rarity in our book of business), is one of them. He calls me dear, and oh how I love it. I know—I’m supposed to bristle at terms of endearment from older men, but I…
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Ujjayi
dripping into triangle pose,with strong legs anda twisting core,my palm sliding downsore, soft shinsto reach the floor,and my eyes, which ought to be fixedon my opposite hand,are momentarily fixed on youand the way you like to watch.powder-pink carnationsin a cobalt-bluetranslucent pitcher.your unbuttoned,secondhand-ownedNaked & Famous shirt.the conversation you decide to startwhile I’m in the most difficult…
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Sierra’s Swarm
In the gulf near Beer Can Island (the worst, until Milton made it a reverie), we are surrounded by aquamarine water that mirrors the sky and is made brighter by the razor-sharp yellow of the sun. A black fog of lovebugs hover around the boat. We laugh and hold our drinks above the gentlest waves,…
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Limbic Threat 🎧
I have a graphto show youlike where a stock iswhen it’s about tobreak out lowerthrough the support leveland I’m blinking at the screenlistening to my office neighboryell at someone on the phone,a glass of sparkling water,a pencil I just sharpened,a post-it on my monitorwith a mantra on it.I laugh at a joke I’ve heardtoo many…
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Rapunzel
You were gold-spun hair and tiny limbs and big, expressive hazel eyes, and dare I say, gold-spun skin?! You had pixie dust in your bloodstream, and it wasn’t from all the handmade princess dresses in the perfectly curated closet your mother kept for you. It was just you. You were only three in these memories…
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Ernest
I see Ernest slowly make his way around the hospital floor. He is (I’m guessing) on his first lap, and it’s shaky. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s not even five a.m. or because his condition is worsening. When you stay in a hospital, time becomes something strange. For me, a visitor, it’s defined…
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Archived
my hair is getting longerand my body keeps getting smallerI make boring appointmentsreceive compliments I want to return,but I don’t want to seem contrived.what I really want?is this parking lot to be empty,so I can dance to this song.I’ll settle for memory mining, though my co-author prefers meto stay silent. he’ll say:shh, get back in…
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Cenerentola
When I was very, very little, I have a memory of being very, very sick and being held by my mom, who was (by all definitions) the best mom in the entire world. She didn’t panic when you were hurt. She flew into calm, focused action. The kind of mom who attacked you with kisses…
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Cherry + Espresso
I pick up Gigion the strip of road with no sidewalkand I unintentionally strut,wearing the short-shorts I slept inand a shirt that the breeze blows through,my chin forward and my shoulders back.I carry her snugin between my ribs and my hip.I can feel her back legsdangling behind meand I suppress a laughthat ends up as…
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a Bee in the Sand 🎧
Collecting moments from a snippet or a slow scene, as if they were rocks I could turn over in my hand and spot their individuality the way the light catches on one or the coarse texture of another. I want to look at them all at once and line them up, just to say: This?…
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The Benefits of Turmeric
The first night we fell asleep together, I said, “Holy shit. We fit.” Because we do. I’d been in the arms of someone else before you. It wasn’t the same— not as perfect, not as dizzying, not as safe. Or as unnervingly addictive. I watch you talk to people, your whole body leaned into them.…
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Muovi il culo, è Pasqua 🎧
I love the way we sort of free falldown the stairs in the morningsfor our walk.But especiallyon holiday mornings.I think about someone my ageawake to watch their childrenexperience the plastic sensationsof their Easter basketwhile they sip a coffee.But for me, it’s different—and this isn’t to say one version isbetter or worse.I love the stillnessthe normally…
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A sparkling powder in a puff
when I was nine,I wrote a pleading letter to my sister who at seventeen, maybe eighteen,had left our familyto live with her birth father. I didn’t know what I was feelingwas abandonment. I wanted to be her.But like an elder sibling sometimes is,she moved through the worldwith a kind of flickerelusive,hard to predict,often difficult to…
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Upon our shore?
I get a text message from a number I don’t recognize that says: Cameuponourshore and I’m intrigued because WHAT DOES IT MEAN? I must know. So I immediately write back… only to receive a photo of an alligator. I realize, oh! It’s the sweet neighbor whose number I should’ve saved (and still haven’t). There is…
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Throw a punch (II) 🎧
I text Sam: “Boxing class = done.” She replies with a prompt, “WOO!!!” Then, “How was it?”—followed by an image of a tarot card pulled for a Libra (my sun sign): The Four of Wands. Beneath it: “There’s something worth celebrating right now, whether you realize it or not. So bring everyone together in the…
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Throw a punch (I)
I shall be fighting a heavy bag in precisely one hour. It only took me nine days to follow through. It will be the first time wrapping my hands and putting on boxing gloves. Not the first time throwing a punch. And definitely not the first time visualizing how good I imagine it feels wearing…
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oh, woe is me 🎵
Can I be vulnerable for a sec? Oh, I’m already vulnerable? Thank you for reading me, whoever you are. Even if you just skim a paragraph, or roll your eyes at a sentence. Thank you for any moment where you exhale and think, “That was good,” or “That was funny,” or if there was even…
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I did it for the sloth 🎧
Why add audios? I could say it’s for accessibility purposes, but I read a comment in a blogging community that basically said they already have software for screen reading. I suppose I just like the act of reading my words. Making them feel less serious or heavy. I think back on my third grade self.…