Retreat - Synergia

Flight 366 to Seattle  It’s a field of baby’s breath outside the plane window again, each cloud its own trigger. There’s Sis and me curled up fetal and frightened, two anorexic commas lacking a suitable stanza. There’s a lost butterfly. A bloated unicorn long dead....

March 1984 They are playing Bridge over Troubled Water and I’m sitting in the balcony with your 16-year-old daughter who tried to save you. Looking down on the grief of my sister who had nothing more to give you. But who could have rescued you from the powder that...

Baby is wailing. You can tell from the pitch that she’s never hurt like this before. She screams ambulance and fire truck sirens in the language of Mommy’s heart. But she isn’t hurt. Not yet, anyhow. Not in the car on the way to the emergency room. Not when Daddy...

There is a level of compassion so great that it opens healing pathways away from trauma, and far beyond and above the abuser. Despite all that residue, detritus demands to be acknowledged. Discard as you can. Do not give the accuser any more of your face time. Call...

Dawn in Tijuana calmed me. It was the brief interlude between crossing the border, and climbing the Sierra de Juarez Mountain. I tied my hair back and rolled down the window. A breeze of salty sea air cooled my face. We drove past bakeries, still locked and closed,...

The Number I know there is a finite number to the times my husband checked me into psychiatric units; I know there is a finite number for the times he called an ambulance; I know there is a finite number for how often the police seemed to just show up at our house....

Dear Tony, When you hired me all I could do was fry fries and wash plates. My knuckles weren't cast-iron friendly. How was I supposed to know you were a junkie and depressive, you always bought the rounds, mad happy, usually, only down before cognac laced coffee, I...