Usually, it was minor things at the mouth of the road. Collisions into the guardrail that mussed up a front fender and little else. The loud squeak of breaks and the cloud of white steam from burnt tire rubber and then maybe voices in dissent. Never the need for an ambulance.

Everyone seems so very fragile,
as fragile as the books falling apart
from glue that has dried to cracking,
tears in the dust jackets,
the extra thin World War II era paper

Newbie tip: Chili and enchilada casserole are two good things to make and freeze for your RV adventure, but you don’t necessarily want to serve them at the same meal.

Five sweaters and a hat find me in the kitchen. Predictably, mother left cigarettes and no note, so I have one over orange juice.

And I make myself concerned suddenly with just where those same mothers have gone absent to, with the indoor weather something now intolerable.

To mine this impulse buried into everything deep. From the urge to take selfies to the number of children one believes it necessary to have in order to establish a family. Knitted into consumption, desire and expression is this essence which expands and contracts like a lung whose air is self-esteem and self-worth.

Then I realize that even if I’m right, hearing that you are an emotional seven-year-old while you’re sitting in the Social Security waiting room might not be very helpful. Because growing up is hard enough when you’re a kid. How are you supposed to start when you’re already an adult?

We all lean in and blow on the cake candles. Hollering and hugging. Laughing and clapping at once. It’s the sort of moment you know you can’t keep, just like you can’t freeze time, so instead you just look right into everyone’s smile and wish on the future for more moments just like it.

He wanted to know if I had anything that belonged to her, or what kind of things did she leave behind? And that gave me pause, because I’d never thought of her, or her case, that way before.

Then the question for me got caught between that place where you consider what you might leave behind and what is left to you, which is kind of all the same thing. Like a big merry-go-round of belongings all changing hands from life to life. 

Thanks. Giving. Thanks - We are thankful for the opportunity to be together and eat food. Giving - I am giving up my free time to do so.

We're all a little bipolar. The fucking planet earth is bipolar. We all vacillate between happy and sad.