I named my son

"Ernest Hope Hemingway"

because when I adopted him

I wandered the streets of Berkeley

finding bookstores and buying

fiction for cheap in 2020;

his previous owner

telling me she'd named him

"Hope," because he was

their family favorite, during Covid -

as if names, and made-up stories

could save us from

a world gone completely insane,

which as it turns out, they did

I would go home and feed him

watching him devour

every square inch of my apartment

while running my fingers along

the spines of books that had

existed for decades, like my copy

of The Sun Also Rises,

by Ernest Hemingway,

that I had bought in Boston,

when "hope" wasn't a word

I'd use to describe anything,

moving me to California,

where my son loves me

more innocently, more fully, than

almost any real person

besides my husband (amongst others),

despite any virus existing -

Ernest (Hope) Hemingway

makes the madness interesting

his little sister, Nora,

is our newest addition -

and like literature,

she will be the gift

that keeps on giving

despite it all, despite everything

I didn’t get drunk

until I was 21

because I saw

what happens

when you drown

your demons

in cheap vodka

and obviously “21”

is an arbitrary number

the government uses

in lieu of health insurance

for the young —

I cringe when I’m carded

now, eleven years later

because who are they

to access whether or not

my demons win tonight

I moved to California

so I could eat “In N Out“

in the parking lot

under palm trees that are

technically dying, and not living

but there’s something horrific

about opening up a ketchup packet

and watching it explode

all over your white dress,

the adrenaline of it, the equivalent

of a bloody mess that bleach can’t fix

what have you done,

you think, moving thousands of

miles west

for a burger that’s just average,

the outline of your past a stain

that’s still visible, the “In N Out” logo fading to grey inside your mouth, colorless

I did it all to escape autumn

all that orange and yellow,

the blood red trees a reminder

of what kills us

when we let it linger

it wasn't hard to find her

on the internet

I used her first name

followed by what she's famous for

it's been only six years

but I can still remember

her pixie cut, her coming out

to a room full of strangers

in a city I don't really remember

with a winter that found me

taking off my scarf, dismantling

myself in front of people

who I'll never know

outside of a single room, in a

city where the snow hit me

like gunfire, each snowflake

a unique bullet meant to kill

we all had our seats,

every week, it never changed

when she talked

she was so out of breath

it was like she was trying

to run from her own thoughts

group therapy is interesting

people come and go, but

I'll always remember her,

how the winter seemed to

contain her in a snow globe

frozen, lost in a storm only

she knew of

I hope she found her voice

one she could use outside of

that room, one that can hold her

and keep her safe from the cold

I write about him sometimes

how he came to group therapy

soaking wet, his button down shirt

soaked through with sweat

the Star of David

hanging from his neck

like the parental expectations

that seemed to

perpetually set him back

mid-twenties, like the rest of us

he was always late

worked some corporate job

and would tell us

that he broke down

on the highway

while driving his car

we would all nod in sympathy

and then he mentioned

the panic attack, the pure

adrenaline that kicked in

when he veered off

onto the shoulder

playing rap music so loud that

his speakers blew out

trying to distract himself

from the sheer hell of himself

I think of him now

maybe as an example

of how we can contain ourselves

so well, until the breaking

point, anxiety like

traffic that doesn't slow

panic seeping into

the very fiber of our clothes

some days are

about forgiving myself

for the people I've loved

for the person I was

like at MoMA

in San Francisco

when I left work early

and took BART to stare

at Rothko for hours,

wondering how only

two colors together

add up to art

the patchwork of it

like being who you are

a person who has loved

a person who is looking

for reasons when

there are none

flight from Denver to LAX

girl next to me

shaking so hard her hands

were in fists, sobbing so

that you had to look twice

to know she was mentally paralyzed

head bent down

whispering to someone

not there, though surrounded

by strangers, she was completely alone

her own consciousness

not able to accept the circumstances

of turbulence, of her public disintegration

I think of her now when I fly

if I should have said something

to calm her down

but then I realize

we're all dealing with our own minds

and their constant humming

stuck in a jet stream

anxiety screaming, but not publicly

a rattling, an impermanent life sentence

that consumes and lies to us

I knew a guy

who applied

to be a

police officer

six times

went through

six rounds of

training camp

to be told

he'd failed

and he wouldn't

become a cop

after all that.

I could tell you

he was five foot five

skinny, nice as sunshine

but what I remember

about him

is that he got up

five times

after failing and

kept trying.

Five times

of being at

the bottom of

his class

and still wanting more

of what lay ahead.

The only question

I had for him

was why not

make it seven

and he laughed

at that

said he knew

when he'd finally

been rejected.

I think of him

when I fail

and I don't know

what he'd make of that

but maybe

he'd like that he shed

a little light

that he'd succeeded

at least, in that.

my sister and I cackled

a laugh that resonates

across time, and space, and reason

while driving in our Prius

joking about holding knives

and accidentally stabbing someone

our anxiety actualized

it was the last time we saw him

my sister behind the wheel

backing out of his driveway

my uncle in his front entryway

the evening light dimming

locking the door

in the house he died in

one month later -

my sister and I remember

the way he lived, the memories he created

and while we drove away,

listening to our anxious heartbeats

propelling us forward,

we were infinite &

while we knew that already

sometimes you don't know

when it's the last time

you'll see somebody

I think he'd appreciate

us laughing uproariously

into that kind of darkness

into the life he’s watching

from above us -