“I carry the ghosts of five finals beneath my eyes, and I have no extra bandwidth left for graduation, family, or posing. Still, I am excited…”

“When I first opened the newspaper and unfolded your smile stretched serenely above your name, I remembered how you first came to me; seemingly a death doula, a mother, to guide me through loss. . .”

“Doctors never saw it on x-rays quite the same way the healers had. Instead, nurses pawed at my abdomen, mistook it as nothing more than blood-clots. I’m so sorry, they whispered…”

“A shadow in the door, his fingers curled around my cellphone. His eyes widened at seeing me in the ER . . . He took a step forward, hesitating before pulling away…”

“I’d arrived to campus that first time wind-tattered, make-up smeared by an hour’s worth of sweat. My wrist ached from nursing the clutch around curves, hazard-level winds pushing me to the edge…”

“He could see the highway in my eyes, the black-tar sinking like tidepools in the corners. I sagged into the couch and sighed into the steam…”

“I would walk, trash bags twisted onto my ankles to shield against snow melt, until I could rest against the bark, flick through songs, and watch as my breath drifted to the shivering leaves…”

“I heard it first before I saw it: a haphazard tapping, urgent as a whisper, against the window…”

“No one told me I was always meant to lose her. To this day, I wonder why they did it…”

“When those eyes flash from yards away, a sickly yellow, there is no time to breathe, to think…”