[{"id":18272,"date":"2026-09-25T01:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T05:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18272"},"modified":"2026-09-23T14:15:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T18:15:45","slug":"qa-with-amanda-rizkalla-author-of-hungered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/interviews\/qa-with-amanda-rizkalla-author-of-hungered\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with Amanda Rizkalla, author of Hungered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amanda Rizkalla is the author of <\/em>Hungered, her debut novel. A recent Steinbeck Fellow and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellow, she has been a writer-in-residence at Ragdale, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, among others. After graduating from Stanford University, she received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a Kemper Knapp Fellow. This interview was conducted by Gauri Awasthi, Editor, Q&A.<\/em><\/p>\n

Donate to <\/strong><\/em>The Offing<\/strong>!<\/strong> Our Patreon<\/a> supporters received early access to this Q&A with Amanda Rizkalla and received other perks. <\/em>The Offing pays our contributors, and we appreciate the help of all our supporters in sustaining our work.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gauri Awasthi: \u201cMama says we eat with our eyes,\u201d the opening line of your book, speaks to the immediate stakes of food insecurity and the real hunger for the speaker. Such a strong beginning choice; can you speak to the process of reaching this opening? Did it arrive in the chronological order of the book-writing? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Amanda Rizkalla:<\/strong> So often when I write, the piece I\u2019m working on feels blurry until I find the right first line, which then brings the rest of the project into focus. This is true whether I\u2019m working on a short story, or an essay, or a novel. As someone who typically does not outline and prefers to figure out the story sentence by sentence, the process of finding that first line feels like choosing the right door to walk through.<\/p>\n

When I first began writing Hungered<\/em>, I kept hearing the phrase \u201cwe eat with our eyes first\u201d over and over again\u2014while waiting in line at a caf\u00e9, at my college dining hall, in the judging portion of cooking shows. I bumped into that phrase so often, like it was a person I kept running into, that I eventually decided to write it down. I thought about what that phrase might mean if it was removed from the context of its intended meaning\u2014which is that the way food is presented is part of the experience of eating it\u2014and how it might translate to a situation where characters have limited access to any food at all.<\/p>\n

There is also something distorting and surreal about being told to experience something with the wrong set of senses, which in this case means experiencing food with vision instead of taste. Although this book is fiction, it draws from a period of my life marked by housing and economic insecurity, and something I wanted to do from the first line is show, in almost a practical and logistical way, the strangeness, the oddness, of living in precarity.<\/p>\n

GA: There is something so heightened in your usage of juxtaposing language in the book. There are the pearls and the amethysts in the speaker\u2019s eyes, all while hunger rumbles in her stomach. <\/strong><\/p>\n

AR:<\/strong> That\u2019s a great observation. I don\u2019t think I was fully aware of that juxtaposition while I was writing the book, but I can definitely see it now that you\u2019ve pointed it out. I think on some level Sofia is more likely to see amethysts in grape-flavored lollipops, or to view cherries as rubies, for example, because of the fact that much of the food she had easy access to before living in the car has now become a luxury. She is surrounded by these everyday items that, in their scarcity, have become glittery, treasure-like. Because she wants these things but cannot have them, these items have a gleam about them.<\/p>\n

Additionally, this imagery has its roots in Sofia\u2019s emerging identity as a painter. This attunement to color and texture and light affects how she sees the world, which means that on a craft level, it saturates the imagery she relays. She has fond memories of using watercolors and acrylics with her father, who also happens to be a painter, and I think of her willingness to see beauty in the world as a way she connects with him from afar, despite his role in causing this rupture in her life.<\/p>\n

GA: The speaker addresses her mixed heritage through food and later more directly. Did you have any concerns about writing about the difficult topics you do: hunger, patriarchy, and trauma cycles\u2014especially as you were navigating characters who are often stereotyped with some of these burdens? <\/strong><\/p>\n

AR:<\/strong> Since the story has some basis in personal experiences, I knew that when I was writing about the topics you mentioned, it was coming from an emotionally honest place. With that said, you\u2019re right\u2014there are always risks when writing about these difficult topics. At the same time, I think asking authors of color to refrain from writing certain stories because the themes are heavy, or have been wrestled with by other writers before, etc., can have a profound silencing effect.<\/p>\n

GA: There are so many poetic moments in the book. Like on Page 313, the likening of brackets into eyelashes or the play of repetition with sentences like, \u201cWe drive. We park. We sleep.\u201d What pushes you to write with experiments in form and such poetics? <\/strong><\/p>\n

AR:<\/strong> I think the relationship between form and content is one of the most interesting things about writing. As soon as I began to read more poetry, I could not unsee the effects of white space on a page or the way in which lineation shapes a reading experience, for example. Poetry awakened me to the idea that the structure of a story can give it unexpected contours, can illuminate something that another approach to storytelling might have obscured. It\u2019s kind of like how the layout of a room affects how you move through the space\u2014when the author has permission to put windows in strange places, or demolish a wall, or even just rearrange the furniture, something exciting happens.<\/p>\n

I knew, in figuring out the form for Hungered<\/em>, that I wanted the structure of the book to be flexible enough to evoke a life in flux. In the shortest sections of the book, particularly toward the end, Sofia\u2019s capacity to narrate diminishes, and so the language grows terse and minimal, and the syntax becomes more rigid as she resorts to sentence fragments and lists to convey what is happening around her. In other moments language itself becomes insufficient to capture how she feels, and so Sofia looks to punctuation instead, and parentheses become eyelashes, like you mentioned.<\/p>\n

Often, the books that stay with me the most are the ones where it feels like the author has carefully used every tool at their disposal to tell the story, and I wanted to try to do the same in Hungered<\/em>.<\/p>\n

GA: There is a sense of fraughtness as well as deep care in the mother-daughter relationship. The speaker exhibits some of the characteristics of what the internet calls the \u2018eldest daughter syndrome.\u2019 What was the visualization of that like through the book-writing process? Did you know this character intimately? <\/strong><\/p>\n

AR:<\/strong> As an eldest daughter myself, I certainly leaned on some of the feelings that I think a lot of eldest children are familiar with when I sorted through the dynamics between Sofia and her mother, Nina. As you mentioned, this kind of parentification is a common enough experience that there\u2019s a name for it. To visualize Sofia\u2019s specific experience of it, I had to think less about the universal \u201celdest child\u201d experience and imagine how someone with her particular personality, age, and situation would react and respond to these expectations.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, I think there is something affirming, maybe even thrilling, to Sofia about being entrusted with responsibilities of someone older than her, like looking after her little brother or holding onto an envelope full of cash that her abuelo gives her without telling her mom. Initially I think Sofia likes to be seen as someone who, despite her young age, can handle these kinds of responsibilities. But eventually that feeling wears off and she feels the weight of these expectations. It becomes this fog that looms over her life, worrying about things her classmates do not have to think twice about.<\/p>\n

What is perhaps even more devastating to Sofia are the moments where the adults in her life infantilize her, and when this is directly at odds with how quickly she has had to grow up and how much this experience has aged her. But she cannot really turn to her teacher or the housing manager at the apartment\u2014two adults who make her feel small\u2014and say, \u201cActually, I have more life experience than you think.\u201d So she is in this impossible situation where she has had to grow up quickly but cannot get credit for this additional maturity.<\/p>\n

GA: What\u2019s next in your writing world? And what books are you reading post the book coming out in the world? <\/strong><\/p>\n

AR:<\/strong> I\u2019m currently at work on another novel, but I\u2019m at the stage in my process where I have been prioritizing reading instead of writing. Recent reads that I loved are: the short story collection Please Don\u2019t Touch the Body<\/em> by Emily Doyle, the novel The Wax Child<\/em> by Olga Ravn, and The Queen of Swords<\/em> by Jazmina Barrera, which is a biography of the Mexican writer, Elena Garro.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

Patrons got it first! Consider becoming a monthly supporter of our\u00a0<\/i><\/b>Patreon<\/i><\/b><\/a>. All donations are tax-deductible.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amanda Rizkalla is the author of Hungered, her debut novel. A recent Steinbeck Fellow and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellow, she has been a writer-in-residence at Ragdale, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, among others. After graduating from Stanford University, she received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a Kemper Knapp Fellow. This interview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":18278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18267,"date":"2026-09-23T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18267"},"modified":"2026-09-18T16:18:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T20:18:02","slug":"my-neighbor-the-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wit-tea\/my-neighbor-the-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"My Neighbor The Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0shits in my scraggly excuse of a lawn<\/p>\n

at least twice a day: right before I shuttlecock after the 10\u2013<\/p>\n

10:15 bus and again in the lonely glaze of night. It\u2019s un-American,<\/p>\n

but I don\u2019t know shit about dog breeds\u2014never heard of the cairn<\/p>\n

terrier or the Dalai Lama\u2019s billy goat\u2014so I can\u2019t tell my landlord<\/p>\n

much about The Dog. I can only describe its fratty owner, married<\/p>\n

to ignoring his mess. The trick: keep the screed short, cut<\/p>\n

the lilac prose, and call him a Young Gentleman, so I sound polite<\/p>\n

and not mad\u2014a Southern gymnastics. Of The Dog, I write, White,<\/em><\/p>\n

large, fluffy,<\/em> my fingers orange with afternoon snack dust. Jesus,<\/p>\n

forgive me. Being angry at The Dog is so unfair. But I\u2019m sick<\/p>\n

of that fungal smell, the sad hay color of grass that can\u2019t grow back.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t fuck with landlords, but I love mine because he responds,<\/p>\n

Ok<\/em>. Sometimes all you need is someone to tell you they\u2019ll take care<\/p>\n

of the shit. The split in the ceiling, burst pipes beneath the sink.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Is there any chance you could fix me in the next ten minutes?<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Any chance you could make it all go away?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0shits in my scraggly excuse of a lawn at least twice a day: right before I shuttlecock after the 10\u2013 10:15 bus and again in the lonely glaze of night. It\u2019s un-American, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":18268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wit-tea"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18227,"date":"2026-09-22T01:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18227"},"modified":"2026-09-22T09:19:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T13:19:47","slug":"loop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/art\/comics\/loop\/","title":{"rendered":"Loop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":18255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18193,"date":"2026-09-21T06:00:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18193"},"modified":"2026-09-15T03:18:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T07:18:36","slug":"reckoning-and-virginia-dmv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/micro\/reckoning-and-virginia-dmv\/","title":{"rendered":"“reckoning” and “virginia dmv”"},"content":{"rendered":"

reckoning<\/strong><\/p>\n

I say yes on Grindr\u2014XXX.
\nStr8Friends ask me: we\u2019re so
\nclose, right? Of course we are
\nnot. Sorry. What happened?
\nDownload the app. Measure
\nthe distance I tread, dick-
\nclaring I\u2019m fag. Listen\u2014
\nI zombied this body you
\nkilled, fashioned as corpse.
\nToo far? I don\u2019t care. I am
\nno longer you. StraightBoy
\nfelt like death \/\/ kept me
\nfrom death. Perhaps I love
\nmurder\u2014murder kept me alive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

virginia dmv<\/strong><\/p>\n

color me X\/ sex\/ license
\nme target \/ X marks the
\nspot \/ X marks me\/ u\/
\nMark\/ treasure chest\/
\ntits hairy\/ hole taut\/
\nur spot i hit\/ my dick
\nu ride\/ i drive\/ we fly
\nover oceans\/ my lie-
\nsense says X\/ we fuck\/
\nmy eyes XX\/ ur eyes
\nXX\/ now govt Xs me\/
\nregisters no\/ who cums
\nfor me\/ only u kno
\nall the ways i say yes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reckoning I say yes on Grindr\u2014XXX. Str8Friends ask me: we\u2019re so close, right? Of course we are not. Sorry. What happened? Download the app. Measure the distance I tread, dick- claring I\u2019m fag. Listen\u2014 I zombied this body you killed, fashioned as corpse. Too far? I don\u2019t care. I am no longer you. StraightBoy felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":18256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-micro"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18210,"date":"2026-09-18T01:00:47","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18210"},"modified":"2026-09-11T13:02:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T17:02:36","slug":"orbiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/insight\/orbiting\/","title":{"rendered":"Orbiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

–\u00a0After Jane Wong<\/em><\/p>\n

I am someone who looks directly at the Sun.<\/span> In a pinch a spoon can be used to dig a grave. In 2006 I fall asleep by the pool and wake up with sun poisoning. After a deer ruts against it, our cosmic crisp apple sapling grows at an angle. The Milky Way orbits around a black hole called Sagittarius A. There is a ring of empty space around Sagittarius A. No one knows why.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I buy four apples at the grocery store and it costs eight dollars. Ohio roads are sprayed with radioactive brine to suppress dust. Scroll scroll scroll girl says sunscreen causes cancer. In 1600 Giordano Bruno is executed for claiming the Earth revolves around the Sun. It is not the black hole that is eating the stars. Each apple is the size of a softball, is mealy inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our blue sky scatters the white light of the sun, making it appear yellow. In 1993 I am born. Scroll scroll scroll guy says God created Earth 5,000 years ago. I gather black walnuts in an orange bucket. Their tarry brown rinds stain my hands for weeks.<\/span> In 2006 my best friend bleaches her hair the color of straw. The Sun is the natural object known to be closest to a perfect sphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2006 I think I am being called by God to go to outer space. Our chickens escape and my husband spends hours building a new fence out of steel. Last year we harvested twenty pounds of strawberries, so we don\u2019t cover them with netting this year. All of our berries are eaten by robins. The Sun is about halfway through its lifespan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0In 2010 my mother gets a biopsy of a spot on her face. After college I gain eighty pounds in a year. The universe is constantly expanding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sunflowers turn their faces to follow the Sun across the sky. In 2025 I try to write a poem about rehab. It\u2019s all cigarettes and fury and the wet orange heat of Florida. I pray I learn to photosynthesize so I no longer have to eat. In 2007 I\u2019m still dripping from the shower when my best friend calls me screaming: <\/span>my dad is dead my dad is dead my dad is dead.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Broadleaf plantain can grow in the cracks of Cleveland asphalt. There is no center of the universe. God says, \u201cLet there be light!\u201d And there is light. Bitter oranges go unharvested on a tree in Lisbon; their mushy carcasses accumulate in the gutters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be fooled by the white sheen of winter. Sunlight reflects off the cold snow crystals, can still burn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nebulae twirling in deep space, condensing into stars. Everyone at the party is drinking blood-red sangria. I pound four glasses of orange juice. The radium wanders into the water and the grass and the crops. The river oats by the road cannot be eaten. When I\u2019m nauseous I\u2019m impatient so I make myself vomit. Girls lick the points of their paintbrushes so many times that their jaws rot off.<\/span><\/p>\n

After rehab I gain sixty pounds and don\u2019t even notice. On the day I am fired our quail are massacred by a raccoon. My best friend and I mix Jose Cuervo and OJ and watch <\/span>The L Word<\/span><\/i>. We black out on her mom\u2019s couch. My stomach\u2014a black hole.<\/span><\/p>\n

The universe is not expanding into anything, nor from any central point. <\/span>My wedding dress no longer fits. I keep it in a bag in my closet, just in case. My husband buries the dead in the compost pile. On my birthday and 100th day of sobriety I celebrate by drinking two bottles of ros\u00e9. <\/span>It is getting faster.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One quail is alive but too injured to save. I yank her thin neck, break it.<\/span> I think I get more sympathy for being an addict than for being a fat person. Is this brilliance?<\/span> The first doctor I go to for a fat disorder diagnosis tells me I am too fat to diagnose. Two baby blue jays on a sidewalk, broken.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the age of 14 my bra size is DD. Eventually the Sun will burn out. Everything on Earth will die. Before the sunset: a green flash. During Cleveland winters I take the maximum allowable dose of supplemental vitamin D. The Big Bang happened everywhere all at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

Someone once told me that all poetry is about death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faster.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every galaxy is hurtling away from every other.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone is the center of their own observable universe. In traditional tarot decks, the Sun represents radiance, abundance, and joy. In 2003\u00a0 I pretend I have a migraine so I don\u2019t have to go to school. I am homeschooled for three months. The Earth is heating up.<\/span><\/p>\n

My paintbrush tastes lemon yellow, crimson red, burnt sienna. I get into the car in July and the steering wheel burns my hands. Who first learned that plants eat sunlight?<\/span><\/p>\n

Pythagoreans believed there was a \u201ccentral fire\u201d that the universe revolves around. The United States is responsible for one quarter of all carbon emissions since 1750.<\/span><\/p>\n

I go for a consult for a breast reduction. The doctor says that my BMI is too high to operate and that he won\u2019t risk it. What if I\u2019m willing to risk it? Less than half of all Americans believe that human activity is responsible for global warming. The doctor says that the anesthesia would be too dangerous for someone of my size. The doctor recommends weight loss surgery.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a city of salt mines under Lake Erie: miles of tunnels. hundreds of rooms, thousands of pillars of salt. I\u2019m not afraid of dying. The United States is the only developed country to not have signed the Paris Climate Agreement. Good things happen to those who wait.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2012 my college boyfriend gets turned on when he watches me eat. Sometimes when the robins are singing my neighbor will come outside and scream \u201cSHUT UP!\u201d Hungry for hunger. Sometimes I talk to my brother who was never born. Sometimes I want to be a man, but I don\u2019t want to be a fat man.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2007 my father watches me stretch my arms, notices the pull of my t-shirt across my chest. He tells me to never stretch like that in public.<\/span><\/p>\n

I leave pieces of myself behind, like scales.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the heat wave we lose power for four days, throw all our food away, drape wet t-shirts on our necks. I listen to the radio and pretend it\u2019s an oracle. \u201cSomebody\u2019s Watching Me\u201d plays twice in an hour. Our garden is beautiful but it was born out of fear. When the trucks stop coming, what will we eat? I wonder if I should learn to shoot a gun. I wonder if I should learn to shoot a gun and then buy a gun. Two guns.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does forty-six billion light years look like to you? I am a palimpsest of everything I\u2019ve ever loved. I am trying to tell you that this is real. The inside of the sun contains the same power density as a compost pile. I am always trying to escape the gravity of myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2006 I have my first existential crisis after watching a movie about the Sun dying. I fly on a plane and the armrests bruise my thighs. As a child I did not practice piano because I didn\u2019t want my parents to hear me make a mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are we too late?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s second nature to suck in my stomach. One more step. Both of my parents voted for Trump, all three times. The Sun doesn\u2019t give a shit about us dying. I wonder what the turning point will be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you begin to envision deep time? Deep space? Grapes melt into raisins on a summer-soaked vine. In directionless space an astronaut extends their hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe this is all there is.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

–\u00a0After Jane Wong I am someone who looks directly at the Sun. In a pinch a spoon can be used to dig a grave. In 2006 I fall asleep by the pool and wake up with sun poisoning. After a deer ruts against it, our cosmic crisp apple sapling grows at an angle. The Milky […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":18219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18244,"date":"2026-09-16T01:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T05:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18244"},"modified":"2026-09-10T19:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T23:40:29","slug":"inside-the-frame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/poetry\/inside-the-frame\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Frame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear viewer, I know you want
\nthe granular: all the details,
\nnot just the gist; the gristle,
\nthe fat, not merely echo of bone.
\nYou want the whole enchilada,
\nso to speak, and I\u2019m truly sorry
\nto disappoint. When it comes down
\nto spilling the tea, the older I get,
\nit turns out, I\u2019d rather not. Feel free
\nto chalk-up my shortcomings
\nto any or all: my misbegotten desires,
\nwishy-washy ways, or maybe
\nplain-old cowardice. In some instances,
\non each count you\u2019d be right. Yet
\nI hope it might alter your view a bit
\nto consider: like you, I too
\ndespise many things. Example?
\nI never cared much for orange.
\nAnd now? Can\u2019t stomach the sight of it.
\nSo must I traffic in that colour,
\nor any other, to prove my bonafides?
\nMy politics? Such exertion,
\ndespite best intentions, I\u2019ve found
\nhas a nasty penchant for shrivelling
\nnot sharpening perspective.
\nIf I could stand in any landscape
\nand with certainty sift
\nforeground from background, perhaps
\nthe situation would be different.
\nBut after years spent squinting
\nto see each image singularly,
\nclearly I\u2019ve thrown in the towel.
\nEven now, I\u2019m again confusing
\nthe figurative for the literal\u2014
\na gift or curse, depending
\non your purview, I suppose.
\nGoodbye<\/em> and hello<\/em>
\nmean the same in many a language
\non this globe. If sadly not the idiom
\nin which I make my home,
\nI take heart in such coincidence,
\nthe sometime-benevolence
\nof fate. I hope you might also,
\ndear viewer, and please,
\nif it pleases you, believe me
\nwhen I say: everything you imagine
\nI have stranded outside the frame
\nis bristling inside of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear viewer, I know you want the granular: all the details, not just the gist; the gristle, the fat, not merely echo of bone. You want the whole enchilada, so to speak, and I\u2019m truly sorry to disappoint. When it comes down to spilling the tea, the older I get, it turns out, I\u2019d rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":18246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18216,"date":"2026-09-14T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18216"},"modified":"2026-09-10T14:11:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T18:11:25","slug":"crane-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/backoftheenvelope\/crane-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Crane Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world.”
\n– Howard Zinn<\/span><\/p>\n

A drum beats. \ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd.<\/p>\n

I glide up a mountain of gnarled pine berets. Past caves where monks once isolated alongside ancient dolmens. When I reach a cliff, you arrive\u2014your cavernous wings blowing gusts of air. \ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd. Your crest glistens cranberry, your chopstick legs quiet as the ants underfoot.<\/p>\n

You have been here longer than the written korean word. Longer than the pictograms that form the bedrock of \ud55c\uc790. <\/p>\n

You know that the word \ubbfc is based upon the chinese character \u6c11. \ubbfc, as in the people of a nation. Not a singular person, but a collective group.<\/p>\n

The character depicts a prisoner of war, gouged in the eye by spear. They have been rendered useless to the nation they fought for. A prize for the nation who captured them.<\/p>\n

Are we all captured people? I ask you.<\/p>\n

You cock your head, obsidian catching the light.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

On April 7, 1950, a document known by its moniker NSC 68 was presented to the president of the united states. A solution in the uncertainty of post-World War II. Although a victory was seized, the soviet union and its communist agenda bled into china, and the decimated economies of the defeated\u2014japan and germany\u2014needed help. A pattern repeated: destroy, rebuild, destroy, rebuild.<\/p>\n

NSC 68\u2019s purpose was laid out with the utmost clarity:
\n to assure the integrity and vitality of our \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588 society, which is founded upon the dignity and worth of the individual.<\/span>
\nThe term \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588<\/span> is used 163 times in the document.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Redaction. From the Latin root redigere. To force back. To bring down. To call in.<\/p>\n

& yet, in 1810, a written redaction was beyond petty compilation & editing.<\/p>\n

A revision so special that it lay beyond.<\/p>\n

In the beyond, this redaction multiples into: an empty space, a place, a claim, a code, a home, a hole, an escape, a rebirth, a universe, a discourse, an applause, a promise, a landscape, a misunderstanding, a characterization, a commitment, a tactic, a line, a pride, an ideal, a parallel, a spring, a swerve, an aversion, an erasure, an identity, an odyssey, a myth, a symbol, an olive branch, a truth, a lie.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read that you migrate to northern china & russia to breed, I say.<\/p>\n

What is china? What is russia? you respond.<\/p>\n

I forget that borders are an invisible line, a construct made of air. As a girl, my family and I often crossed the tennessee-georgia border. I felt the same on either side, no more tennessean than georgian. I was Asian on both.<\/p>\n

I always desired a northern identity though. A girl drowning in the depths of all that southern twang. I loved the boiled peanuts but hated the cloying & sticky aftertaste of all the hypocrisies. So many I lost count.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t know the meaning of these boundaries, only the fence that now surrounds you & your kin. Home in the DMZ, 150 miles long. When you fly across the line, you are northern for a moment.<\/p>\n

Korea has been split by the united states\u2019 arbitrary designation for longer than I have been alive\u2014longer than my parents too. The north is neither myth nor fairy tale. In the south, the north is state-mandated curfews, imprisoned communist sympathizers, & impossible homecomings.<\/p>\n

To be in the south is to be \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588<\/span>. Or so they say.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \ud55c\uc790 for north is \u5317. The character depicts two people standing, backs against each other. Originally, it was meant to convey the back part of the body. And then\u2014the act of turning against.<\/p>\n

What comes first\u2014the prophecy or the history? The language or the violence?<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

NSC 68 altered history forever. A gateway to global warfare. A justification to produce weapons & maintain a large standing army. The beginning of a military industrial complex & the gestation of future genocides to come.<\/p>\n

Under prior presidents & conflicts, the army would shrink down in times of peace. NSC 68 argued for an offensive approach: by means of a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic, and military strength of the \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588 world.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 1940s, defense budget spending was 175-billion dollars. After NSC 68, the budget ballooned to 650-billion.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

That was 475-billion dollars of more missiles, bombs, grenades, projectiles, cannons, sidearms, rifles, carbines, shotguns, submachine guns, tanks, aircrafts, satellites, infrared surveillance tools, biometric collection programs, artificial intelligence algorithms, lasers, submarines, ships, uniforms, vests, goggles, helmets, boots, bases, & people.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

The word for human in korean is \uc778\uac04. In \ud55c\uc790, the meaning translates to person in-between.<\/p>\n

In the in-between, I am you. Wings outstretched, my redness glinting for all the world to see. Legs caked in mud.<\/p>\n

In the in-between, I am you. Soaring high above, miles at a time. Untethered by nation. Borderless.<\/p>\n

In the in-between, I am you. \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588<\/span>, but without home. The earth is unrecognizable. The waters murky & crusted.<\/p>\n

In the in-between, you are me. Wild & cagey. In a body made to fly but flightless.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026the \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588 society values the individual as an end to himself, requiring of him only that measure of self-discipline and self-restraint\u2026
\n\u2026marvelous diversity, deep tolerance, the lawfulness of the \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588 society\u2026
\n\u2026pursuing through \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588 inquiry the search for truth\u2026
\n\u2026building of a just society\u2026
\n\u2026the principal center of power\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

I met a man in dallas, where I wasn\u2019t supposed to be. Waiting for the hotel shuttle, I asked what he did for the federal government.<\/p>\n

Weapons & munitions testing, he said.<\/p>\n

Oh, the poor earth, I said.<\/p>\n

You flew overhead. Oh, the poor earth, you echoed.<\/p>\n

We test in the ugly wasteland on the border of california & mexico, he said.<\/p>\n

Oh, the poor earth.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t worry, we watch out for the birds. We clean the debris.<\/p>\n

Oh, the poor earth.<\/p>\n

I joined you above, circling this white man. He confided in me that he didn\u2019t care what our government did. I say yes so I can retire in a year, he said. He was thirty-eight years old.<\/p>\n

I looked down & wished we could melt him into a wetland where you could rest, preen, breed, & gorge. But he was too solid with propaganda. A Yes Man. A weapons expert. A prisoner of the system. What does it take for him to be \u2588\u2588\u2588\u2588<\/span>?<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before NSC 68, there was containment.<\/p>\n

The policy originated in 1946 via cable regarding the spread of communism. In the following two years, it was permanently documented & disseminated, first as essay & then as doctrine. Create a border around the very problem, it said, squeeze it until it collapses.<\/p>\n

In many ways, containment became the backbone of NSC 68\u2019s feverish desire for global defense.<\/p>\n

If we build, if we maintain, if we protect, if we supply, if we deploy\u2014only then will containment become more than calculated and gradual coercion<\/span>. Containment will be enforceable & devastatingly so.<\/p>\n

Yet another line drawn on a map.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the bloodshed that has seeped into the DMZ\u2019s soil, it is now an ecological haven. Near-extinct species\u2014102 out of the 267 on the endangered species list\u2014thrive in this human-less paradise flanked by metal & barbed wire.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

One of those species is you, the \ub2e8\uc815\ud559.<\/p>\n

Since 2013, the south has attempted to create an Eco-Peace Park out of this borderland. Its success is dependent on two opposing nations, still at war seventy years later.<\/p>\n

To save the cranes, the south says.<\/p>\n

Fuck the cranes, the north says. But this is the story the united states spins, because an occupation means power over & this power over is nothing more than an illusion of democracy & this illusion is the birthplace of a villain who won\u2019t allow the \ubbfc to forget how they barely escaped the Cold War\u2019s threat of totalitarianism. & what they meant when they said totalitarianism was: the threat to the principal center of power.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

In medieval times, a god-fearing empire in the west built walls so high that the sky was nothing more than a tiny painting. Bordered by scarcity & loathing & survival. Is that what borders do? Force us into tiny corners of the world, where we add my before everything we touch? Delineate you & me from the good ground of the earth? Brainwash us into believing that crossing an invisible line means something?<\/p>\n

Today, redaction\u2019s former usage has been replaced by its practical & less imaginative sibling. The government now uses it to oblige the people\u2019s demands of transparency while ensuring its secrets remain eclipsed.<\/p>\n

The redaction under the nation: yet another man-made border.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the borders at the thirty-eighth parallel were to dissolve, what becomes of you?<\/p>\n

In korea, you symbolize long-term partnership. And yet, a reunification of this split nation poses a threat to your existence.<\/p>\n

If these borders had never been made, which is to say if these nations had never been built, which is also to say if empire was never born, would you be living abundantly in your homelands today?<\/p>\n

Because I am a sucker for proxies, I find the Sandhill Cranes on Wapato Island. Bodies as big as yours, they are cackling jesters chattering in the marshes & sky. I watch them & watch myself watching them. I watch you watch me watch them & then I am soaring & swooping, elongating & thumping.<\/p>\n

\ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd.<\/p>\n

We are beyond the pines, beyond the tarmacs of dallas, beyond the constructs of walls & nations & \ubbfc. We fly so high that the earth is nothing more than a seedling & we are stars & galaxies, dust & waves. From here, we know there is no distinction between us, only the never-ending river that connects, an apparatus that lives beyond language, power, & time, an apparatus as invisible as the borders we create, only called an apparatus because what else do you call a thing that cannot be contained?<\/p>\n

What else, but free?<\/p>\n

\n<\/hr>\n

1. Bruce Cummings, The Korean War (Modern Library, 2011) 212-217.\u21a9<\/a><\/sup>
\n2. National Institute of Ecology, Google (2023), DMZ Eco Story. Database on-line. Google Arts & Culture. http:\/\/www.artsandculture.gooogle.com. Accessed 23 March 2026.\u21a9<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world.” – Howard Zinn A drum beats. \ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd\ub450\ub8fd. I glide up a mountain of gnarled pine berets. Past caves where monks once isolated alongside ancient dolmens. When I reach a cliff, you arrive\u2014your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":18222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backoftheenvelope"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18161,"date":"2026-09-09T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18161"},"modified":"2026-09-09T12:38:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:38:31","slug":"we-are-the-pack-of-teenage-girls-at-the-mall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wit-tea\/we-are-the-pack-of-teenage-girls-at-the-mall\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are the Pack of Teenage Girls at the Mall"},"content":{"rendered":"

We aren\u2019t explicitly staring at your muffin top. We are, however, staring at your jeans. They are\u2026 an interesting choice, for sure. Low rise, yet somehow also high like you must\u2019ve been when you decided to wear them in our presence.<\/p>\n

We are the pack of teenage girls at the mall, and this is our natural habitat\u2014fluorescent-lit and eternally 72 degrees, a landscape of cinnamon-sweet air and mirrored storefronts that multiply us until you can\u2019t tell how many are watching you.<\/p>\n

Our leader is Meghan, who is not to be confused with Megann from home room, who is the personification of evil and also smells weird. We worship Meghan because she smells like vanilla body lotion and has a boyfriend with a provisional driver\u2019s license. One time, she swiped a bottle of Moscato from her parents and brought it to a sleepover. We all say we got soooooooooooo drunk, but really none of us felt anything because we split the bottle nine ways. Evenly, of course, because we are fair and justice-minded.<\/p>\n

We move in a pack. Ideally, five bodies across, but we can go down to three in order to fit through narrower spaces. We are modular in this way. We do not walk around obstacles; we surround them. Our slow glide past PacSun is part of the hunt. The synchronized hair flip in front of Hot Topic is the kill shot. You, unfortunately, are in the blast radius. You will not feel any pain, but something will leave you missing a piece of yourself.<\/p>\n

Our watering hole is the food court. We never buy food. We sit at a single table for four even though there are ten of us. We arrange our Victoria\u2019s Secret Pink shopping bags in front of us like shields. We nurse one shared Diet Coke for ninety minutes, taking turns with the straw. We watch you pick at your salad from the salad place no one cool goes to. We silently agree: she\u2019s probably a teacher. That\u2019s why her aura is so\u2026tragic.<\/p>\n

You might see us in Sephora, swatching lip gloss we will not buy. We leave our fingerprints everywhere. We know we smell like Bath & Body Works because we have sprayed ourselves with at least four different mists on the way here. This is on purpose. We want to be a cloud you have to walk through on your way to the skincare section you think will \u201creverse time.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have opinions on you. We will not say them to your face, but you will feel them in your bones. We know you are watching us watch you. That\u2019s the point. We are the main characters of this mall, and you are merely a side quest wandering through our storyline. Your presence will be discussed later in a group chat titled \u201cSKINNY LEGENDZ,\u201d where we will argue over whether a professional glam team could save you or whether you\u2019re too far gone.<\/p>\n

One day, Meghan will get a full driver\u2019s license. We will no longer need the mall to contain us. Until then, we will be here, orbiting Abercrombie and Auntie Anne\u2019s, our jangling bracelets and synchronized whispers echoing through the air-conditioned eternity.<\/p>\n

You will dream that night of trying to run, but the mall is endless, looping the same stores forever. We are behind you in every reflection. We are the pack of teenage girls at the mall. And we have noticed your jeans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We aren\u2019t explicitly staring at your muffin top. We are, however, staring at your jeans. They are\u2026 an interesting choice, for sure. Low rise, yet somehow also high like you must\u2019ve been when you decided to wear them in our presence. We are the pack of teenage girls at the mall, and this is our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":18162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wit-tea"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18171,"date":"2026-09-08T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18171"},"modified":"2026-08-26T10:05:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:05:05","slug":"excerpt-acid-green-velvet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/fiction\/excerpt-acid-green-velvet\/","title":{"rendered":"Excerpt from Acid Green Velvet<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

A shadow smeared the girl\u2019s window glass, dark breath seeping in at the seams to reconstitute itself in the stillness of the room, and hover bedside: a neurotic, caped demon wrenching himself away even as he slid closer, landing on the girl\u2019s blind mouth. The demon took a sip and hissed his revulsion. His weight grew heavy on her. Her arms rose. She grazed her hand across his back, fingernails singeing on contact with his pale acid flesh<\/em> \u2026 You treat me like I\u2019m gone, but I never left. Couldn\u2019t if I\u2019d wanted to. I was content to dream, a ready-made sea for all who seek it. I lay in the dark, this thing<\/em> on top of me as coalesced as a ball of rags. It was pummeling my chest with the tiny effort of a moth pounding unto its own small death. As sensations go, it\u2019s oddly satisfying. I laughed. The flutter reached a minor panic. I lay sprinkled with coolness, building to a crushing sadness, lungs rattling behind big horrific breaths. The weight slid down, and down. I picked up one of his hands, an exquisite carving, pressing my lips to green veins bundled in the center of his wrist. I slid my tongue along his arm, his throat, making the flesh real. I held firmly in my hands and kissed all over what would become his face. I heard the rasp of human breath, felt blood filling my mouth.<\/p>\n

Johnny\u2019s carriage tumbled up the driveway, its lamp, a slip of untimely sun, casting a jagged path on the wall. If he was alone, it would be because he\u2019d left his friends passed out in the theater. I\u2019m bored, generally, but these new pastimes of his were hardly superior, sitting drunk watching spit arc into the footlights from behind you. I finessed my costume, smoothing, cinching. Johnny came in smelling of smoke, armpit grease, and rosemary. He found me in the dark, humming his greeting as he smushed his face into my neck, taking large bites and working his way down. He was running on the last of an intriguing public energy. It jarred me. But I can do better. I reassured myself that I too would go outside for a night\u2019s entertainment. I would order a rum omelet in a tavern. I would inoculate myself with the knowledge that men don\u2019t know much about a woman\u2019s idea of fun. I squeezed his arm, then slid my hand down the back of his shirt to that fleshy area over his kidneys. Its softness made me think of Johnny as an infant, his mother making faces and pinching his little body as he lay in a cot. Johnny tried loosening the front of my dress. He sniffled, caught himself, and sniffled some more. God<\/em>, I thought, he is actually weird<\/em>. That earnest weeping \u2026 You sloppy little tool, I love you. You are falling, and there\u2019s no clear end. We are two planets with fucked-up geometry. One day you\u2019ll keep going, slip through my fingers and into my mouth.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was the middle of the night, not like that mattered. Johnny was hungry so we went downstairs and I brought out what was left of dinner. Johnny sat at the table in his kimono jacket, looking past me with a blur to his eyes, no doubt cycling through the evening\u2019s regrets. Small perceived slights gathered in heaps, ill-kept pets beseeching him with wet glances. His barriers were more and more permeable, and he liked to drag me across them. He liked that.<\/p>\n

Johnny went into another room and returned with a ledger book. He flipped through it without looking at any page in particular, plucking out assorted slips of paper that were tucked inside before tossing the ledger itself up onto a high pantry shelf. He sat back down to scrutinize the loose sheets, marring them thoughtlessly before also casting those aside. He reacted strangely when he noticed me watching him. Truth be told, I was always watching him. And the way he looked back\u2014well, I\u2019ve been making a living parsing those<\/em> kinds of looks since I was a child.<\/p>\n

Whatever he was looking for, he wasn\u2019t finding it. He hunched there distracted. Grasping for a pretense to go back, I thought. Johnny would never let himself go shimmying downtown at this hour simply because he wanted to. There needed to be a purpose, couched in something mundane and impersonal.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnsettled business?\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n

He thought for a moment, tapping out a fragment of song with his fingertips. Then his hands relaxed and joined each other. He sagged in his seat, his stare enigmatic, goatlike. \u201cAs it happens,\u201d he declared, \u201cI am to be expected downtown,\u201d like it was next on the schedule, after an evening of variety theater, gorging on peanuts, and getting blown in the dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen\u2014in the morning?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a morning-type errand. Urgent, you understand. Won\u2019t take long.\u201d<\/p>\n

I lingered on it a second, nodding, my lips pursed. \u201cIn that case,\u201d I ventured tastefully, \u201cI ought to perhaps tag along?\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled, a polite shift in the angle of his head. \u201cDid you think I was simply informing you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not,\u201d I said coolly, springing from my chair. I lingered in the open space of the kitchen with a dish in my hand, ready to make it look like I was only clearing the table. \u201cAre you asking if I want to go too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I skipped into a run. \u201cIt only seems that I should<\/em> go,\u201d I said, \u201cto drive, one gets so tired. I mean who else is available at this hour? These long days, Johnny. How are you even still awake? I have a feeling something bad would happen if we ignored it and went back upstairs. You can sleep all of tomorrow\u201d\u2014I left everything scattered on the countertops\u2014\u201cI insist!\u201d\u2014and in one unbroken gesture I\u2019d pulled on boots and a coat. \u201cDon\u2019t ever doubt me, Johnny.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the foyer I caught myself and ran upstairs to add layers of disguise. Johnny was intrigued and wanted one too. I saw to it. When I was done he looked like something that crawled out of a subterranean beer room in Catesville. \u201cYeah,\u201d he said approvingly. \u201cBury me like this.\u201d I curtsied at him in my sullied lace.<\/p>\n

We left through the kitchen door, took the garden path, then through the gate to the road, lights of home casting finer and finer, sputtering to black. There was a moon slimpsing down around the hills, somewhere. The quietest roar came from the sky, almost purely imaginary. Johnny drove, squinting ahead with a confident mania. Our carriage light nipped at the darkness as treelike hands moved to pull the road out from under us.<\/p>\n

Johnny pulled up to a livery stable on the outskirts of town. We saw the horses turned out into a pasture box, having roused the proprietor who\u2019d been sleeping in a wagon bed with his dog. Then we walked on, tracing the cut of a barranca till we reached the main road, Laurel, and Anzar proper. All was quiet, the air mild, scented with herbs, a half-lit sky ushering us toward the smell of questionable amusement downtown. I forgave Johnny that he\u2019d teased me into revealing so much of myself earlier, because of course he knew I wanted to go too. Instead of sleeping, I was heading in the direction of tantalizing unknowns; I promised myself I\u2019d cut it off before it killed me. To the center of town I was bringing my intangible sick glamour\u2014my wealth was energetic in nature. Johnny walked with money<\/em>, tactile and true. The two of us put together exploited a collision of magics, an abundance we moved within as a gorgeous bubble.<\/p>\n

We crossed into town without speaking, drawn toward the spectacle of a group of loose tramps in the near distance. Johnny meandered, slowing as he picked up on a mood redolent of Liberation on the downtown plaza. We waded into the introductory sights, approaching the first human napping on a blanket. Others lolled nearby, some with torches, a few capering before the windows of the plaza\u2019s outlying buildings. There were strategic boulders and a system of plank walks crisscrossing the sodden green. Carton shacks and tent shanties were grouped on the knolls. Below, a band shell draped with an old sail shredded into a parody of lace suggested riotous performance could occur on a moment\u2019s notice. Fun-loving tramps circulated around like it was the middle of the day, roaring in groups, chugging whole bottles on rocking chairs sunk into the mud. Guys were jogging back and forth with bundles, armfuls of unidentifiable objects, things with legs, a goat or maybe a small human, a woman, singing right into her ear. I heard Johnny chuckling to himself. He\u2019d set down to a crouch, taking in the scene. I stood by in my cloak hood, my face stiff with powder.<\/p>\n

A crowd had gathered in front of a man lecturing in the back of a cart. Some sort of rally was in progress, the man\u2019s pro-vagabond screed taking on the strains of a bear against a rock face. Around him an audience of men perched on the park\u2019s extant boulders, trinkets strewn thoughtlessly by God\u2019s baby. A few bellowed fragments of their own speeches. Even within this racket I could tease out the familiar appeal, the rhetoric wielded by generations of tramp-philosophers and slick bull artists, hiding behind their devotion and research into the lives of the ancient mystics. Pure bugology, the way these speeches glided straight to the con, all before roving eyes of the audience scanning for the tail end of money. The worldview expressed was at its core anti-person, a demand for the primacy of the animal.<\/p>\n

Some invisible force washed over Johnny\u2014he rose and sauntered right into the plaza. I followed him \u2026 Before it killed me<\/em>, my own phrase gluey alongside, metered out in footsteps. A man wearing a vest made of iridescent rooster feathers stood holding a banner proclaiming ANTS ARE CAVEMEN. Elsewhere a young man with a peeved ostrichlike face was seated behind a small folding table. Nothing was on the table except a row of peanuts lined up along the far edge, and he was watching us as he sucked deeply from his spiced cigarette. I saw an altar arranged against the trunk of a nearby sycamore, a paste of pigeon down and droppings spread over its base. Small devotional cards in varied hands were tied with ribbons all around the altar frame and a photograph of an old man holding a baby was tacked to the top. A group of ten or so, men outnumbering women, stooped around a duo practicing their cellos; the watchers standing under a tatter of branches, only intermittently focused. In the low light their faces appeared to float at the trunk-level, as they wore dark wool wraps, despite the warm night. A man told a woman who was sipping from a mug of green soup to cover her hair. She stood up and walked away without a glance; several watched as she trampled tiny moss blooms on the path boards. All through this flagging and drooping underworld enchantment were men cranking their backs, leaning over rails to leer at women, what few women were out at this hour. To be out here with her, at this hour<\/em>\u2014a rustling from behind, a man flashing homemade dentures. His companion, swaying on his curved spine, kneaded a mat of tobacco chaw in his fingers. Johnny strolled on and I followed him as close as I could. We passed a thin enormous man holding a pet ferret in a special sling. As we got closer I saw it wasn\u2019t a ferret but rather a confusion of beard and his bandaged arm. Johnny wasn\u2019t looking, he walked with his head turned, taken by something else, only getting closer to this guy while I tried to steer him the other way. When we were inches from the ferret man he widened his stance and caught us with his breath. \u201cLike I said,\u201d the ferret man rasped, \u201cyou shouldn\u2019t be out here.\u201d I gave Johnny a contemptuous look but he said nothing and we quickly passed, tracing the edge of the park on boards creaking underfoot, back to the road. I felt better on the road, a quarter mile or more of open air till we reached the sloughfront and a tavern there. Johnny said it\u2019d be open, he said we\u2019d be allowed to sit. I felt the breeze close as he walked with me, thinking who cares if you almost want to touch him, weaving my arm around his arm as we passed out of earshot of downtown. I was delighted at the prospect of dipping in for refreshments, sitting opposite each other on soft damask banquettes streaked with tea, crumbs collected in the button tufts. There\u2019ll be a canopy of palms overhead, shading all doubt, buffeting against your standards of scorn, Johnny, your sense of propriety it\u2019s outrageous, your paranoia. As if there\u2019ll be waiters huddled together in intense debate in the corners. We shouldn\u2019t be out here? Some nut said that. Some bum, insane fellow. They want, they\u2019ll find scads of offenders, chances to fret at every turn. They don\u2019t set the reality we choose to inhabit.<\/p>\n

We were standing on the street; I was looking forward to going inside some place and sitting down. I\u2019d been keeping my eyes trained on the singed edges of downtown\u2019s teetering novelty act, of men engaged in a warped circus experiment seconds from catastrophe. I was beginning to feel fatigued.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

Excerpted from Acid Green Velvet<\/em> by Grace Krilanovich. Reprinted by permission of Two Dollar Radio. Copyright \u00a9 2026 by Grace Krilanovich. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Acid Green Velvet<\/em> can be ordered here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A shadow smeared the girl\u2019s window glass, dark breath seeping in at the seams to reconstitute itself in the stillness of the room, and hover bedside: a neurotic, caped demon wrenching himself away even as he slid closer, landing on the girl\u2019s blind mouth. The demon took a sip and hissed his revulsion. His weight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":18173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":18166,"date":"2026-09-04T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/?p=18166"},"modified":"2026-08-25T17:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:03:17","slug":"recuerdo-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/fiction\/recuerdo-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"Recuerdo, Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat was I going to do with this gruesome painting of the smashed corpse of my friend, and her blood dripping down all over the frame? . . . I would not have requested such a gory picture of my worst enemy, much less of my unfortunate friend.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Clare Boothe Luce<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Toby and I were in my old Ford Taurus out front of the billboard on Bright Road again. I was looking down at his brown curls nodding between my thighs, thinking about his mother and The Suicide of Dorothy Hale<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d come to the billboard because Toby wanted to see it, but I couldn\u2019t remember what we had been talking about before he got on his knees. Something about his mom and what she did. \u201cShe was their leader,\u201d he said, resting his cheek on my naked thigh.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I said, because what was I supposed to say? It was the truth.<\/p>\n

His mom did lead twelve women to their deaths by jumping Dorothy Hale-style.<\/p>\n

Since she died, Toby always seemed to be looking for my reassurance that his mom was not a bad person. As if I would know what a good mother looked like.<\/p>\n

My mom had been religious in that Baptist, speaking-in-tongues way. She was responsible for all sorts of anti-abortion signs around town, had organized protests at the Planned Parenthood in Toledo and at pride parades, but her coup de gr\u00e2ce had been the Bright Road billboard in front of us: REPENT, it said in letters taller than me, BEFORE IT\u2019S TOO LATE.<\/p>\n

Toby sighed, and I shivered as his breath hit me just right. I didn\u2019t know what he expected me to say. No one had ever accused me of being comforting. I tried to direct his face back between my legs, but he said, \u201cYou don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t need to. I\u2019d liked his mom. She was everything my mom wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a good person,\u201d Toby said, as if he was trying to convince himself. He nuzzled his temple against my knee.<\/p>\n

People always said that about my mom, too. But if his mom led women to their deaths, mine antagonized them into killing themselves.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

My mom died a month ago of ovarian cancer, two weeks after Toby\u2019s mom killed herself. She\u2019d been sick a while before being diagnosed. By then, it was too late. When she called me for the first time in eleven years, she said she wanted to mend things before she died\u2014and could I take care of her when her church friends weren\u2019t around?<\/p>\n

I moved back into my childhood bedroom but refused to break my lease. She wasn\u2019t sorry about what caused the rift all those years ago. I hadn\u2019t expected her to apologize. Still, when I walked back in that house after so long, I didn\u2019t think she\u2019d take one look at me from the couch where she lay shriveled like a corpse and say, \u201cYou\u2019ve really let yourself go.\u201d I should have known it\u2019d be like that, should have turned right around and left.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

It was a weekday in late September when Toby\u2019s mom and the Findlay Twelve leapt from a cliff onto the rocks of Lake Erie. The town paper read: LOCAL CULT COMMITS MASS SUICIDE ON THE SHORES OF ERIE.<\/p>\n

When my mom died, her death was featured among six others in the obituaries section. Next to a quarter-sized picture of her, it said, \u201cMartha Morrison, 64, died Sunday, October 9, 2022, at her home in Findlay after a short battle with cancer. She is preceded in death by her husband, John.\u201d It mentioned nothing of me, her only daughter.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

Toby and I met when we were in seventh grade. We\u2019d gone to different schools\u2014him to the city\u2019s, me to the county\u2019s. He was a skinny kid in a ratty t-shirt, standing in front of the card table my school used for a concession stand during school events. He was notable because I didn\u2019t recognize him, and everyone knew everyone at my school. We were there for Othello in Space<\/em>, a play put on by the high schoolers.<\/p>\n

I spotted him gnawing on a Twizzler during intermission. \u201cWho are you?\u201d I said, marching up to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked first.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked second.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTabitha,\u201d I said. \u201cTabby for short.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToby,\u201d he said. \u201cToby for short.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot Tobias?\u201d<\/p>\n

He took another bite of his Twizzler.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a weird question,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He shrugged.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching whatever this is.\u201d He gestured with the Twizzler toward the stage. The lights overhead blinked to signal the end of intermission.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but why?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mom was at a church committee and didn\u2019t know I was there.<\/p>\n

Toby\u2019s t-shirt had a hole in the collar. I poked his skin through it. \u201cDo you always do what your mom wants?\u201d I couldn\u2019t remember the last time I actively did what mine said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s cool,\u201d he said. He pointed toward the stage at a woman four rows back in an aisle seat. Even then, Geneva had colorfully streaked gray hair. It was staticky as if someone had rubbed a balloon against it. She seemed rather ostrich-like, long-necked, nose sharp, even though the rest of her face was soft. I\u2019d never seen a woman in such ill-fitting clothes. I dug my finger deeper into Toby\u2019s t-shirt\u2019s hole, curled it around the fabric, and pulled.<\/p>\n

His hand came around my wrist and held me still. Before I could turn to look at him, her face turned to me, a smooth movement as if it could rotate on an inhuman axis.<\/p>\n

We made eye contact. Hers were brown, nearly black, like the stage when the lights dimmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s her,\u201d Toby said, as she slowly grinned. \u201cThat\u2019s my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

Early in our friendship, I learned from Toby that his mom was a real weirdo who loved art. He wouldn\u2019t let me come to his house because his mom was always having \u201csecret\u201d meetings, though I wouldn\u2019t understand what that meant for several years. Plus, there was yarn and thread everywhere, he said. His mom had a hobby of weaving textile likenesses of famous paintings and selling them at local craft shows. The first time I officially met Toby\u2019s mom was at one in Lima. I was in college by then, around 21, and was supposed to pick up Toby for lunch. We\u2019d gotten into the habit of meeting up once or twice a semester while I was in school at Bowling Green. He hadn\u2019t gone to college, but he was still around Findlay, stocking produce and helping his mom with her textiles.<\/p>\n

I found Toby\u2019s mom\u2019s booth near the middle of the room. The two of them sat in fold-out chairs at a card table with tapestries piled on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome,\u201d she said, standing. Her hand swept out. \u201cI\u2019m Geneva. What kind of art are you searching for, dear?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh,\u201d I said. \u201cToby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what kind of art do you enjoy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUm,\u201d I said, looking at Toby to save me. He smiled and spread his hands over the textile in front of him. \u201cThat,\u201d I said, pointing to the one Toby handled. It had clouds on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d Geneva said with the kind of delight my mom only showed when putting a particularly hefty pile of bills in the tithe envelope at church, a moment of hesitation followed by sheer smugness. \u201cWhat taste,\u201d she said. \u201cMy, what taste. And you know my Toby?\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t say anything because Toby was already nodding his head so fast his bangs bounced. I\u2019d never seen someone talk so theatrically and affectionately to a stranger. Later, I\u2019d come to understand it as part of Geneva\u2019s way, a measured performance of what she gauged whoever she spoke to needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my masterpiece,\u201d she said, resting her hand over her heart. \u201cA replica of Frida Kahlo\u2019s greatest work, The Suicide of Dorothy Hale<\/em>. Do you know it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clouds are nice,\u201d I said. \u201cI like the dead lady.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dear,\u201d she said, pausing for a second as if she was too aghast to continue. \u201cWhat about the romance? Don\u2019t you feel her pain? Look at her graceful arm and corsage, her sightless eyes. Do you know her story?\u201d<\/p>\n

If eyes could project sentences, mine would have said you could\u2019ve warned me<\/em> to Toby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, she died,\u201d I guessed. \u201cOf suicide.\u201d The lady in the textile was on the sidewalk in front of a building, bleeding out. She wore a black dress. A skyscraper shrouded in clouds loomed over her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite tragic. She was an actress who jumped from her apartment in New York City after her husband died. Her friend commissioned this recuerdo<\/em>, a memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCool,\u201d I said, stepping backwards and staring impatiently at Toby.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must take it,\u201d she said, picking up the textile reverently. The sticker on it read $200.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA gift,\u201d she said. \u201cFrom me to Toby\u2019s girlfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not,\u201d I said, and if I had it my way, we never would be. He seemed to think otherwise, inching closer to me whenever we went out, offering me his coat when it was cold. I didn\u2019t see Toby that way then. He was nice and all, my friend, but he was kind of short, and his hair was ridiculous.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go,\u201d Toby said before I could finish. He snapped up the textile, bunching Dorothy\u2019s face with his fist.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

At 36, I should have been more prepared to deal with my mother\u2019s illness than I was.<\/p>\n

The sicker my mom got, the more fervent her prayers grew. With the chemo and other treatments, she couldn\u2019t make it to church in person, so it was my job to pull up the streaming service on her old Dell. Two and a half months before she died, I had just settled her on the couch with the laptop when I overheard her pastor talk about the \u201cwitch\u201d in town.<\/p>\n

\u201cLord Jesus,\u201d he said, the fourth or fifth time since Mom\u2019s eyes closed in prayer. \u201cWe ask that you protect this town from the machinations of Satan. We lift up in prayer those who would lead us down a path of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

I sat at the kitchen table behind my mother and pulled out my cellphone to record. Sometimes, when the pastor got going, he\u2019d lapse into tongues. Toby and I\u2019d text about it\u2014the video, a snake emoji, a laughing smiley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know, Lord Jesus, that there are those who would turn us toward evil,\u201d the pastor said. \u201cThere are those who work to end innocent lives. We ask that you bring wisdom into their hearts, that you guide them toward your light.\u201d<\/p>\n

I held back a snort. I couldn\u2019t believe anyone actually believed this shit in the twenty-first century. We lived in the country just outside of the town of Findlay, about forty-five minutes south of Toledo, but that didn\u2019t mean we were isolated or even that everyone was religious. Plenty thought my mom\u2019s church was bananas. They simply didn\u2019t circle my mom\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cLord Jesus,\u201d the pastor said, the video lagging so that the audio did not sync to his lips. \u201cWe lift up Geneva Michaelson. We ask that you enter her heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geneva? Toby\u2019s mother? I paused the recording on my phone. \u201cMom?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShh,\u201d she said, waving her hand back at me. She lay prone on her back, arm stretched out over her head, the way Kahlo had portrayed Hale on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom,\u201d I said, \u201cthat\u2019s Toby\u2019s mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d she said. In the background, the pastor still praying.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not a witch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not speak to me that way, Tabitha.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not a witch.\u201d My voice rose as the pastor\u2019s voice grew fervent. \u201cYou have to tell him to stop. It\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

She slammed the laptop closed. It was the most animated I\u2019d seen her in days. \u201cWhat\u2019s she doing with all those babies then?\u201d she shouted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d I stood and took the laptop off her lap before she could drop it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe babies. What is she doing with them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not doing anything with them. She runs a support group.\u201d I put the laptop down on the kitchen table and walked away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what I know,\u201d she called after me. When I didn\u2019t turn around, she added, \u201cWhere are you going? I need you. Bring me my checkbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadn\u2019t she given those people enough money? She\u2019d been active in the church her whole life, organizing bake sales, attending bible studies, heading up all sorts of reach-out committees. Growing up, I\u2019d found it deeply embarrassing. As an adult, it was a nuisance and dangerous.<\/p>\n

I rounded the hallway corner and heard: \u201cI know what you two did together.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t turn back.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t tell her that Geneva had been more of a mother to me in the last eleven years than she\u2019d ever been.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I knew Geneva didn\u2019t do back-alley or basement abortions like my mom was suggesting. I knew because when I was pregnant all those years ago, that wasn\u2019t how she helped me.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

When the doctor told me I was pregnant, she delivered the worst news of my life as if it was the best. Congratulations<\/em>, she\u2019d said, as if it was wonderful that I was nearly five months along.<\/p>\n

At 25, I should have had the wherewithal and resources to deal with a baby, but I was neck-deep in student loans, and my job as a secretary at the dentist\u2019s office paid little. So, when my period was late, I denied it until I couldn\u2019t any longer, which was how I found myself sitting on the curb outside my gynecologist\u2019s office, head cradled in my hands, deep breathing on my tennis shoes, wishing to turn back time, so I could tell my boss hell no<\/em> when he asked if I wanted to grab a margarita.<\/p>\n

Then, in what felt like a hallucination due to heat stroke, I heard a quiet voice asking if I was all right. \u201cNo,\u201d I muttered, shrinking further into myself, nose almost touching laces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are resources for dealing with unwanted pregnancies,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re not too far along to do something, but you can\u2019t wait much longer in the state of Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n

I sniffled and lifted my head when I felt her attempt to slip pamphlets and flyers in the space between my elbow and knees. It was the gynecologist\u2019s assistant speaking to me. I took the papers.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would have given these to you had you waited,\u201d the woman said. \u201cWe thought you stormed out and left, didn\u2019t know you were sitting here all this time until another patient told us there was a woman who looked like she needed help on the curb.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fine,\u201d I said. I had to be.<\/p>\n

Her eyebrows creased. \u201cWhen I got pregnant with my first, I was still in high school.\u201d She took the flyers she\u2019d slid to me and began shuffling them around. \u201cThis woman leads a support group for mothers. All kinds. Those that give birth and those that don\u2019t, no matter the way. She helped me. Give her a call.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked down at the flyer, and there was Geneva beneath the words \u201cMothers in Art: A Support Group,\u201d standing proudly in front of her tapestries, a gaudy homemade pin on her sweater that said \u201cdoula.\u201d The picture had been printed on construction paper and unevenly folded. Even though it was during one of those spells where Toby and I had lost touch because of how busy life was, I still called her, and that decision, too, changed everything.<\/p>\n

It led me to moving in with Geneva a week later. It led me to confiding in somebody else\u2019s mother about my terror that I had made a critical mistake I\u2019d pay for with the rest of my life. It led me to ghosting my own mother.<\/p>\n

But Geneva was Geneva, holding me together with her Dorothy Hale stories and green bean casserole. She worried my mom worried, so she wrote to her to let her know. That was Geneva\u2019s worst quality, thinking that love could triumph anything.<\/p>\n

She was gravely disappointed when my mother responded asking to never be contacted again.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

A week after the sermon, the church came for Geneva\u2019s reputation. They started with flyers, shoving them in the fists of anyone too polite to say no. Initially, Geneva laughed it off. They were just kooks she told me when I apologized on their behalf. They\u2019d seen her give an interview on the news about access to birth control and prenatal care and the importance of healing through art. Then, they organized boycotts of any business seen hosting her support group meetings, and she found it less funny. It got so bad that Geneva stopped publicly announcing where she\u2019d be, so they started marching outside of her house. They\u2019d block the support-group women from coming and going, follow them to and from her door, harassing them about their \u201cbabies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women came to Geneva for all sorts of counseling. They were grieving their miscarriages. They couldn\u2019t get pregnant. They were pregnant and considering their options\u2014adoptions and, yes, even abortions. Geneva was not a doctor, and although she was what some might call odd, she was smart enough to know that she was not medically trained. Her group existed mostly for support through talking while making art.<\/p>\n

Then the church released the list.<\/p>\n

It contained the name of every woman Geneva was known to be helping and some who she\u2019d helped in the past. How they got hold of it, Toby and I couldn\u2019t figure out, but the damage was done. Suddenly, her safe space was no longer safe. Some of these women were abused and hiding from exes, or their pregnancies were a secret. It became dangerous to associate with Geneva for fear you\u2019d be named.<\/p>\n

I begged my mother to stop and even went so far as to hide her laptop. It didn\u2019t matter that she was sick. She could organize from the couch, fund them with her last dollars. I hated her, but I couldn\u2019t take her cellphone in case she had an emergency. My one relief was that I knew her involvement in terrorizing Geneva would end soon because there was no way she was going to live much longer. She was dying, the hospice worker insisted when I expressed my disbelief. It was only a matter of days, maybe weeks, they said.<\/p>\n

But it was enough time for her to achieve her crowning glory, that billboard, and it wasn\u2019t the worst thing they did to Geneva, but it was the last.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

Geneva was not a witch, but she was magical in the way she touched the women she helped, in her dedication to the community she cultivated. My own mother could not inspire that kind of loyalty. Her church friends were part of her world because of her tithing. Though, to hear her tell it, you\u2019d think they were family.<\/p>\n

Where were they, then, in her final days?<\/p>\n

As the weeks grew colder, the last leaves of the year seemed to be waiting for a strong gust to relieve them of the burden of hanging on. It was a Wednesday, the last day I saw her. I wore a purple zip-up hoodie, my hair draped down my back like a cape. Her room was cold, poorly lit because the blinds were drawn.<\/p>\n

I was folding a blanket when she said, \u201cYou went, didn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked down at the black button-down I wore under the hoodie, the black jeans that were slightly too loose but all I had. I should have known my mother would know it was Geneva\u2019s visitation that afternoon. I put the blanket in the dresser, closing the drawer slowly as if I, too, could slide away into darkness, be tucked away neatly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know I always knew,\u201d she said to my back when I didn\u2019t turn around. \u201cI always knew that woman helped you murder that baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw you after you left, you know. You were getting gas at the Sunoco across town, and I thought, There\u2019s my baby, pregnant with her baby<\/em>, but then you turned, and I saw your flat stomach. You would\u2019ve been close to eight months along then if her letter to me was honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

I breathed in the way Geneva taught me. Felt the air in my chest, blew out slowly. \u201cI lost it, Mom. I didn\u2019t want it, but I didn\u2019t get rid of it. I just started bleeding one day while eating popcorn at Geneva\u2019s house. She took me to the E.R. where they told us I was having a miscarriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you come back then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause you wouldn\u2019t have understood.\u201d Because I\u2019m lying<\/em>. The day had already been too long, too exhausting, to fight her, and I already felt guilty for wishing it was her in that coffin instead of Geneva.<\/p>\n

She scoffed, and it turned into a cough. I imagined her bucking upward as her muscles spasmed, but I still faced the dresser, the wall where her print of Jesus praying hung. \u201cYou didn\u2019t come home,\u201d she said between wheezes, \u201cbecause that woman brainwashed you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That woman<\/em>, I thought, drove me across state lines when we realized it was already too late in Ohio<\/em>. That woman held my hand and helped me when others couldn\u2019t, when my own mother wouldn\u2019t. It had been a choice, and it hadn\u2019t been. There was no room in my life for a child. I did not regret it. \u201cShe didn\u2019t brainwash me,\u201d I said quietly, still facing Jesus. His lifeless eyes looked heavenward. Geneva would have been distraught at the sloppiness of the print just as she\u2019d been distraught when I told her my mother wouldn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

Mom was still coughing, but she managed a clear, \u201cMurderer.\u201d An even clearer: \u201cShe killed all those women.\u201d She coughed again, a strangled, \u201cYou\u2019re lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turned slightly, caught her wrinkled fist moving from her mouth to her sheet. \u201cLucky?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLucky I saved you,\u201d she said. How she could be so loud while dying made little sense.<\/p>\n

I turned back to Jesus and curled my fingers over the top of the dresser, standing still so as not to lash out, and took a big breath. Geneva would want me to respond with grace, but lucky<\/em> kept flashing before my eyes as if someone tagged it there. There was no escaping it. Like how there was no escape when I was a kid when my mom would make me pray for forgiveness for not cleaning my room, for kissing Toby on the front porch, for forgetting to tell her that I had something going on after school. Like how she wasn\u2019t there for me when I was pregnant. How she didn\u2019t care even after Geneva\u2019s letter. How Geneva had sat with me while we constructed this lie in case anyone asked: It was the couch, the popcorn, the bleeding, nothing anyone could do, a miscarriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cYou\u2019ve done nothing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a pause. Another wheeze. \u201cNothing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing,\u201d I said to Jesus before turning to find her frail form prone on the bed. One hand clutched at her chest, the other thrown over her head Dorothy Hale-style. \u201cGeneva was more of a mother to me than you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She squinted her eyes like she always did whenever she was going to start ranting, then she sighed, deflating as if her body was releasing all its breath. Her eyes glistened.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepent,\u201d she said. \u201cYou must repent, Tabitha, for speaking to your mother like that. For treating your mother like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

I started to say no, when she added, \u201cSay sorry for abandoning me and hope that God forgives you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I held still, thinking if I let her tire herself out, she\u2019d eventually believe she won and stop, thinking if Geneva had just waited her out, she might still be alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou apologize,\u201d my mom wheezed, as I began to turn. \u201cOr you leave right now and know you killed your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

My back tightened, pole straight, and snapped. If strangling her might put us both out of our misery, I\u2019d do it, but she did not deserve the same quick release Geneva had chosen for herself.<\/p>\n

So I left. Glancing once more at Jesus and the corner of the quilt sticking out of the dresser, I placed one foot in front of the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cTabitha,\u201d she called, as I reached the bedroom entrance. \u201cDon\u2019t you dare,\u201d she said when I stepped out. \u201cYou come back right now, you hear?\u201d she yelled. I slowly made my way down the hall. \u201cTabitha,\u201d she called. I reached the front entryway. \u201cCome back here,\u201d she said, her coughing following me like a choir. \u201cI need you.\u201d With each wheezing cough, each word, I felt my muscles begin to loosen. With one hand, I wiped my face and found it dry. With the other, I turned the doorknob. I walked out into the daylight.<\/p>\n

Nine days later, my mother would die. Alone, as far as I knew.<\/p>\n

\u25c6<\/p>\n

This is not a love story if that\u2019s what you\u2019ve been hoping for. I learned a long time ago that love rarely exists however you need or desire it. Take what you want and don\u2019t give much in return. So, when Toby told me he loved me not long after our mothers died, I didn’t accept it out of kindness. I accepted it because it was offered, and he didn\u2019t seem to mind when I didn’t say it back.<\/p>\n

We were in my car out front of the billboard on Bright Road again. We weren\u2019t having sex or talking. We\u2019d come out here on a Thursday at midnight because it was quiet and we needed to get away from Geneva\u2019s house, where we both lived because we couldn\u2019t bear to be alone. I didn\u2019t know how it came to be a habit, relaxing in front of what felt like a crime scene, or at least the weapon that killed Geneva and twelve other women.<\/p>\n

I was dicking around on my phone when Toby blurted, \u201cIt\u2019s like that baby Hitler question.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been enjoying the silence, but because I\u2019d already decided to be nicer to Toby, who was both now my landlord and my boyfriend, I made myself respond. \u201cYeah?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d he said, resting his hand on my knee. \u201cYou know the one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said, dropping my head back to the headrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you could kill him when he was a baby, would you do it to save all those people?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mom didn\u2019t kill those women.\u201d That morning, the local paper had come out with another hit piece describing Geneva as the ringleader who orchestrated the suicide, going into detail about the cliff where the women jumped. How investigators found wine glasses and bottles strewn about. Streamers dampened with dew. Yellow roses scattered from their cars to the cliff. Shoes next to the quilt the women allegedly sat atop before finishing their drinks and leaping onto the rocks of Lake Erie. Sometimes, I pictured them jumping one-by-one. Sometimes, I imagined them holding hands and counting to three. The news had all sorts of theories for how they did it and why. They called them the Findlay Twelve even though there were thirteen total.<\/p>\n

To the town, Geneva was the villain, not the victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were grieving,\u201d I said. \u201cThe rumors made everything worse.\u201d I thought of the last time I\u2019d seen Geneva, how pale she\u2019d been when she\u2019d graciously accepted the flowers I\u2019d brought her along with my whole-hearted apology for my mother. \u201cSome of them were victims of abuse and probably afraid,\u201d I told Toby. I wondered what it was like to love someone or something that hard. \u201cYour mom loved them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toby kissed my shoulder. \u201cShe called them \u2018her women.\u2019 They wouldn\u2019t have done it without her.\u201d<\/p>\n

I absently rubbed my chest over my heart. Before she jumped from her high-rise, Dorothy Hale had thrown a party, too. \u201cI was one of her women,\u201d I said, but she hadn\u2019t taken me or told me what she was going to do. My name had been absent from the church\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad you didn\u2019t go,\u201d he said. He had brown eyes like his mother. \u201cI\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t lose you, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

I gave him a closed-lip smile and looked at the billboard. It was fading slowly. Who knew how much longer it would be up before it was replaced with an ad for a car dealership or a politician or something. Most people probably didn\u2019t connect the two: the suicide of the Findlay Twelve and the abuse they\u2019d suffered from the church. Same as the paint in The Suicide of Dorothy Hale<\/em> bleeding over the canvas to cover the frame, the suicide of the Findlay Twelve reached beyond their deaths to touch the entirety of a town that wouldn\u2019t remember them beyond the caricatures it made of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it okay if I still love her?\u201d Toby asked. It was when he said shit like that that I felt the most inclined toward cruelty. Vulnerability, once recognized, could not be unrecognized. That\u2019s why Geneva jumped, I thought. That\u2019s why her women went with her. Hold a match to a candle long enough, and the wick is bound to catch fire.<\/p>\n

Toby never could stand silence, so when I didn\u2019t answer, he said, \u201cSometimes good people do bad things. That doesn\u2019t make them bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes,\u201d I said, sliding off the seat to my knees, crawling toward him, \u201cbad people do good things.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ran his fingers through my hair, brushing it from my cheek. \u201cI love you, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know.\u201d I\u2019d recognized it long ago, and I couldn\u2019t unrecognize it.<\/p>\n

Dorothy Hale was known for the corsage she\u2019d fastened to her dress before she killed herself. Geneva for her group suicide. My mother for supporting her church. No one opening an old paper years from now would think twice about Martha Morrison\u2019s obituary, but they might consider the article titled FINDLAY TWELVE: OFFICIALS INVESTIGATING OCCULT CONNECTIONS, ABORTION. They might read about Geneva\u2019s love of art, how The Suicide of Dorothy Hale<\/em> was likely an inspiration for how she chose to die, and they might wonder about this woman and her women.<\/p>\n

I placed my fingers on the inside of Toby\u2019s thighs. He put each knee on either side of my hips. To serve<\/em>, Geneva told me when I thanked her for driving me across state lines, for letting me stay with her for months after my abortion, is my life\u2019s mission<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What would it have been like to stand with her on the precipice of that cliff\u2014water frothing, waves punishing, each moment passing with condensation billowing from our lips?<\/p>\n

I knelt forward, pushing my palms toward Toby\u2019s zipper, as if he were a pew at which I worshipped.<\/p>\n

Devotion\u2014that\u2019s what I\u2019d been craving all these months.<\/p>\n

I took a breath and held it in my throat.<\/p>\n

Well, this would be the end of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat was I going to do with this gruesome painting of the smashed corpse of my friend, and her blood dripping down all over the frame? . . . I would not have requested such a gory picture of my worst enemy, much less of my unfortunate friend.\u201d \u2013 Clare Boothe Luce   Toby and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":18169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoffingmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]