Playing chess taught me a queen is both: deadly & graceful, poised & ruthless. Quiet & cunning. A queen offers her hand to be kissed, & can form it into a fist while smiling the whole damn time.

I say: “Say you’re sorry.”

He must have realized his laugh was like one of those paper shredders making a sad confetti of my hopes.

I want to hate this dead woman. For the way even talking about her twists up my mother’s face. This dead woman, who made my father visit, & have a child, & board a plane that fell into the ocean. I am slow to put the pieces together. I want to hate a dead woman, & her daughter who most likely hates me for making my father leave her in the first

I was my mother’s gift to the sun of her life. She revolved around my father, the classic distant satellite that came close enough to eclipse her once a year.

Can you be from a place you have never been? You can find the island stamped all over me, but what would the island find if I was there? Can you claim a home that does not know you, much less claim you as its own?

Such a funny phrase, pay respects. As if suffering is a debt that can be eased by a hug & a head nod.

I am theirs. You can see them on me. But I am also all mine, mostly.

You do not let your words stunt unknown possibilities.