I tell her I have just two memories of childhood: the night my father died and the day our house burned in a fire. I am seeking to remember something else, anything else, from my life before I was eleven.
The Rabbit Hole
Category: Memoir
Our archive of past pieces that are part of a larger work of creative nonfiction.
The First Time
It’s a crisp, cold Saturday night and barring any unforeseen disasters, it will be the night. The night that I finally break the hold my ex-husband, Jack, has over me and spread my legs for another man.
Panic of Birds
You are five years old. You play with Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Ponies and have three Cabbage Patch Kids. You cry every night when you think no one is listening. Your mother walks in on you and asks what’s wrong and you look up at her with 40-year old eyes and say, “I don’t know.” Mother takes you to see a “talking doctor,” as she calls it. A doctor for you to talk to, Lisa. You climb into the gigantic leather chair and notice all the spider plants hanging from the ceiling. You aren’t too interested in this man; you want to swing from the vines of the plants.
Waking Up
There was a knock on the door. The door was open, but she knocked anyway. I didn’t know it then, but she wasn’t allowed to enter the room. “Hey.” she said. “Did you just get here?” This seemed to me a pointless question – we both knew I had just gotten there.
