Sometimes love feels fierce as hate-
mingling down in howling tears.
It's hard to tell the difference
Am I crying for my kid?
Am I crying for myself?
Which makes me wonder
What your mother felt the day she cradled
your dead body?
Read MoreSometimes love feels fierce as hate-
mingling down in howling tears.
It's hard to tell the difference
Am I crying for my kid?
Am I crying for myself?
Which makes me wonder
What your mother felt the day she cradled
your dead body?
Read MorePeople tell me from time to time that I’m just like my father. And there was a time when I didn’t like to hear that. But now I’m proud to say that in many ways, I am like my father.
Read MoreYou need good friends when you walk with people through their most tender and hard places. Trey, Dick, and I became good friends, brothers really.
Then they died.
Read MoreOur classes would gather in the school’s main hallway each morning, lining ourselves against glass windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. The teachers stood in their jackets and drank coffee, bracing themselves against the cold breeze that flowed through the ever-opening doors. We shrank back from the cold ourselves, tucking our arms and legs and chins inside our coats. One morning, Ms. Reed marched along our line and stood in front of me. “Stand up, Backous,” she said, her loud voice booming over my head. “Unzip your coat.”
I felt my face twist up as I pulled down the zipper. Ms. Reed sipped her coffee. “You are not appropriately dressed. You cannot wear T-shirts with what we talked about. Go call your mother.”
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