- At least three vibrators, because being raised by Evangelical Christians apparently does very little to tamp down a young Queer Atheist libido; because my best friend liked sex for the sake of sex; because she taught me all about fellatio and double penetration and BDSM at a formative time when I knew nothing, and so I owed it to her to keep her sex toys out of sight of her mother.
- Delta of Venus
- Half of an eighth of weed, because of course she smoked weed; because the mentally ill always smoke weed; because there is no other way to cope with the sheer maelstrom of noise and self-loathing omnipresent to a depressed frontal cortex; because her parents came to parenthood in the age of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and thus marijuana will always be a drug; thus all drugs will always be bad.
- A glass piece from a head shop in the middle of nowhere we had christened “Mitch Hedberg”, which cracked while smoking a memorial bowl upon Mitch Hedberg’s untimely demise.
- All the condoms
- The risqué photos she took with her husband, before he was her husband, until he was no longer her husband and she was left to pick up the pieces; images from a previous era when they were in love and their future was bright with infinite potential; pictures in a dungeon because they were both broken, and hurt people hurt people.
- The Bible from which we ripped pages to roll joints.
- The journals and diaries and sheets of looseleaf covered with her swirling handwriting; her ruminations on Christianity and her blended family and the conflict in Iraq that occurred all the way back in 2004, the conflict her parents still remain convinced was the only path to Iraqi freedom; the pages on which she came to terms with being Queer, even as her family encouraged her to hide her burgeoning Bisexuality from her little sister, lest the little girl be tainted; lest the little girl get any ideas.
- A few DVDs of utterly hysterical porn.
- The empty bottles and benzodiazepine pills that would have been left over. [1]
[1] But I didn’t end up removing anything when I should have, because I didn’t get to my best friend in time; because we had drifted apart as of late and I didn’t know she was struggling; because I got the call from her mother while she was standing by my best friend’s hospital bed, where my best friend would ultimately fail to regain consciousness; because my best friend’s parents were then en route to her apartment next, to deal with the rescue dog which now needed a home.
I don’t know what they found; but I do know it was all my fault; because I broke my promise; because there’s no way to make absolutely any part of this any better at all.
Shannon Frost Greenstein (she/her) resides in Philadelphia with her children and soulmate. She is the author of “These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things”, a full-length book of poetry available from Really Serious Literature, and “Pray for Us Sinners,” a short story collection with Alien Buddha Press. Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Litro Mag, Bending Genres, Parentheses Journal, and elsewhere. Follow Shannon at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre.