Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. But there is nothing right or seemly that those we have asked to die are doctors. teachers. children. All for the sake of a piece of paper we treat as if divinely-inspired instead of written by men who couldn’t imagine how different our now would be from their then. Do you know it took a month (a little more) for the king to learn of tea dumped on Boston’s shore? Yet in an instant (a little more) I can learn of children gunned down one th

The blank slate where I want to write sorrow for the black bodies taken, where I want to write worry for the invisible vector tornadoeing the air where I want to write despair over the warming nights, the forever hurricanes, for the gaseous demons devouring the atmosphere – Instead, I can only half-scrawl tired. And it seems spring sun slants through the open window, the forsythia blooming outside, and writes in dappled shadow – rest. Which I can only half do, knowing, if num

The doctor keeps telling me: ‘Go out. Get some fresh air. Talk to people.' I tried to tell him I have no friends, they’re all dead. He doesn’t listen. I tried to tell him it’s hard for me to go outside. He doesn’t listen. I get tired quickly walking with the walker. Sometimes I trip and almost fall on the uneven sidewalk. I take a long time to cross the street, the light always changes from red to green before I reach the other side. I’m always afraid a car will hit me. I onl

Brevity and small encounters are how I would describe my relationship with Mr. Freeze. I nicknamed him like a pet, there in my limited contact, tenderly tucked within the confines of my car. In those brief moments before the light changed and I would have to commute down that same worn path into work, I would drink him in, all of him. The first time I noticed Mr. Freeze, he had been asleep, stretched upon the naked concrete without a pillow or blanket insight. He wore secondh