Entering someone’s home is always an intimate act.

It is here that I bury my treasures. What sort of treasures comprise my Collection, you ask? Well, where to begin? Three glass marbles, two plastic superheroes, one emerald solitaire ring. Four credit cards and a driver’s license. One jeweled barrette. One human tooth. Why that look of disgust? I did not remove it myself. The former owner wiggled

Some trees aren’t meant to sprout tender new branches, but to stand stoically on the forest floor, silently decaying.

she doesn’t remember. It slipped into some sort of void, as so many things did,

Are they pumping hallucinogens through the ductwork here?

Once your soul was soaked though with grief, any more simply ran off, overflowed,

“Conscience does make cowards of us all,

Every piece of Erik was a fresh loss, even his ill-gotten artwork.

Tova wonders sometimes if it’s better that way, to have one’s tragedies clustered together, to make good use of the existing rawness.