I find a dusty camcorder in the garage. It used to belong to my grandmother. It takes VHS tapes. In the years between 11 and 12 all want...

I’m 12. My father wakes me at 7am in a panic. Saturday morning. What happened? Are you okay??? He can barely produce the sounds that make...

Mother-less. My mother leaves our home as I enter the 6th grade. It will be years before I begin to understand the disease that takes her...

I slide into puberty like a whale slamming home base. Belly up and lacking grace. I still want to be the girl who skins her knees playing...

I’m standing on a stage with my hair in a cap and lights in my eyes. The play is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’m Charlie. Freckles...

At 8, I am obsessed with the mirror. I can drop anchor there. There. My feet in the sink on the counter in that bathroom with the peeling...

6. At 6 I play all day on the monkey bars. I lay in bed at night and run my fingers over the callouses on my palms. I earned this. Pride....

5. I disappear one afternoon. I’m five years old. My mother finds me in a neighbor’s closet where the neighbor’s five year-old son and I...

4. My brother is an infant. Baby skin. I can’t get enough of that skin. I maul him. I kiss his crown. I carry him from room to room. Tiny...

3. I’m four and a half years old. I hold up 4 pudgy fingers to tell you so. I make sure to add the half. With voice. The half is...

2. My second birthday. Or perhaps it is my third. I climb out of my crib to spy my mother making a cake in the kitchen. The smell of...

1. I’m bare skinned and belly down on a lamb skin rug. I’m watching myself in a mirror fixed to one side of a triangular plastic toy. The...