I’m the sibling who smokes. the dirty one. my sisters have managed some semblance of respectability. I’m the fuckup who’ll never reform.

I can’t sustain anything good. or bad. so maybe that’s good. I brood. I’m in earnest all the time. it’ll kill me.

I’m a parent. I was too young. I miss her so much sometimes I dream about her living with me and when I wake, just as the landscape bursts apart into what some people call reality, I immediately wish I could get a factory reset. the sensation dissipates. I’m plucky.

I think about Dorothy Dandridge a lot. she was a Scorpio too. she also gave birth to a baby with a rare brain condition. we both had to put our kids in institutions because we couldn’t afford to keep them. all these systems are dying, and we writhe in the steaming carcass. we’re bound to slide out some day. my friend Kira found a dead raccoon in her wall. she simply sniffed it out and told the landlord where to cut.

the facility where my daughter lives is an unfair distance from me. I visit her at school once a week. the staff there are kind and pity my predicament. I keep a hope hung on the idea of getting her back. having a home together again. a couch. we watch movies in our pajamas, and I get her ready for bed when she nods off smiling.

today I lied and said my nana passed away because I just wanted her off my emergency contact list. the receptionist twice mentioned she was terribly sorry to hear it, like she knew nana.

as a teenager, I slept with a pedophile for drugs. he taped his middle school girlfriend’s picture above my head on the bedpost. I’m dedicated.

when my kid moved to the institution, I cracked. I drove down south for weeks and weeks in grief. stayed with a friend on their floor and in shitty motels. I forgot who I was. I became nobody. everyone was afraid of what I might do. I possessed great potential.

after I came out as queer, then trans, a lot of people left. I huddle through life like a boat lost in the fog. that’s not it exactly. I’m lightning hunting for ground. I wait expectantly. which is the worst way to wait. I’m a hard-way kind of learner. nana used to say I fought at life. always swinging—that’s me.

I can take a joke. my neighbor, Jeannie, is deaf. she’s teaching me sign language. she’s incredibly patient but also makes fun of me. which I love.

I have spiritual dreams. sometimes they’re prophetic. I like to think that, anyway.

I adore a strong storm. my daughter was conceived during monsoon season. I didn’t even come close to orgasm. I won’t be anybody’s spouse. someone gave me a ring once and it didn’t fit. I took that as a bad omen. any small coincidence could be a sign. I’ve never been a gold-star anything. I check my horoscope daily, a fiend for immediate early morning alerts. I’m desperate for positive reinforcement, universe.

my daughter’s father’s father renamed himself from Merlin to Solitaire. I met him one time only to tell the family I was pregnant. his mistress lived in the house. I gave his son a choice, and he decided not to be a parent.

I used to tell people that my daughter had no father; instead she sprang from my head like Athena because I read that in a mythology book and really appreciated the concept. now I’m her father and her mother and that feels closer to a truth.

I’m good with plants. they grow for me. I pay unbearably close attention. I notice the nuance.

tracked my own trail in the snow and opened myself up for warmth.

I have no regrets with a single exception. it’ll do me no service to spell everything out. I prefer shorthand. I’m rewriteable.

*