Creative Nonfiction: A Part of Me by S. J. Buckley
The skin was repulsive, like a snake or cicada’s, a reminder that he’d shed it, but was alive somewhere close.
The skin was repulsive, like a snake or cicada’s, a reminder that he’d shed it, but was alive somewhere close.
It’s past time for a trim.
Mommy like a Cutco knife through a cantaloupe.
Over and over and over, hopping, falling, flailing… until one day it worked.
I am 20 years old. I am someone who has sex. I am someone men want. I am someone men want to fuck.
Your auntie has too many damn kids mom tells me one day over a glass of Chablis.
The way the light shone through the blanket above us like sun dappling the water’s skin; the way we hovered below the surface of awakening.
I think of the signs I didn’t see: a confusion, a slowing down, a stooping of her small frame.
We loved so hard in those rooms. Could the walls feel it?
Who could blame me for wanting to believe everything was going to be OK?