The Cedarville Review 2018

PROSE 41 I’m frequently lost in thought about the fifteen page printed copy due at 5 pm on Friday and how I can make the introduction just a little longer so that I have at least one full page by the end of the hour. Lost in thought about the boy in the green and brown and beige military camouflage who used to live out of his van and made me laugh until my stomach ached and taught me how to ride a motorcycle, who now resides thousands of miles away in Columbus, Georgia, maybe to never be seen again. Lost in thought about my mother cooking alone in the kitchen, talking to the two black and silver-haired labradoodles who are her only company at night. Lost in thought about how God could ever want to love or help someone as depraved as me. I lost my brother to a hatred that froze his emotions like ice, only cracked when pressed upon, only expressed in shattered, piercing bits. Last year I lost contact with my father. Or, maybe instead, I lost the idea of contacting him. I lost my grandma to depression and the inability to forgive. I watched my mom lose herself in pieces to a man she loved too much, drifting away from the person I remembered her as, like ashes in a cool summer night’s breeze. And I watched her aimless shadow-self bend to sweep them up into a dustpan, along with black Labradoodle hairs and crumbs of broken ramen noodle bits and missed tan and rusty red star-shaped cat food.