As our outdoor, high school assembly wound down one spring morning, my friend and I playfully tossed into each other’s shoes a variety of wood chip which coated our seating area’s floor. This back-and-forth escalated with increasing quantities of wood chips, and then, as we were dismissed and my friend stood up to head to… Continue reading I beat up my friend
Tag: memory
Masks, memory, and the long road to justice
Going to a party the other night for the first time in more than a year, I was surprised at the intensity of the experience, a veritable surge of content after a valley of silence. Prior to leaving my house for the party, I struggled with anxiety; what would it feel like to encounter so… Continue reading Masks, memory, and the long road to justice
Pillow talk
The things learned beside the pillow of a lover, Secrets told and then made obsolete when relationship ends. * Facts about a dangerous past, An abusive one, About mistakes made, Fantasies rendered. * What to do with such truths when the connection is irrelevant? What becomes them? * Do they live on, Like ghosts that… Continue reading Pillow talk
The world as it existed
I remember the world As it existed in February of 2020. Bustling, redolent, pristine, And open to all forms of experience. In this world, I shook a stranger’s hand upon our introduction. I sat in a crowded coffee shop and read, Music overhead, someone coughing in the distance. I traveled where I liked, Did not… Continue reading The world as it existed
Obituary to my childhood self
You are responsible for some of my earliest memories. Not earliest, I suppose—we didn’t meet until I was seven years old. Still, the memories feel primordial: they feel like they coincide with the genesis of my being. Playing in New Mexico, I remember vast expanses of hills and trees, valleys into which we would look… Continue reading Obituary to my childhood self
Jackson Holzberg Buckley 