origami into hurt

according to late-night-sofa stories, when my mom & dad were getting a divorce, my dad hid all five of us kids from our mom, for two whole weeks. my mom was said to be running around with a sunburned man, getting high on moonlit drugs, & forgetting she was a mother. i was still fresh & gooey from the hospital so i don’t remember anything from that time. but my mom—even as she filled herself with static—felt my missing daily, when she’d start leaking, when her breasts would swell with unrelease. eventually, my mom found out we were staying at our tía susie’s, & she fluttered across the city, beat on the front door rabid, tried coaxing our tía into letting her inside. our tía susie wouldn’t budge though, saying through a slightly cracked open door, i’m gonna call the cops if you don’t leave. i know you’re high. go. she shut the door on my mother’s face & my mom pounded—please! please let me see my babies—until her hands rouged & rot, until she had no choice but to leave. & i imagine my mother then, heading to her car, as a huge collapsing glacier, disappearing more & more out of herself with each step. & the power that my tía had in that moment, to origami my mother into hurt & shame, is how you want my sister to feel right now, as you ignore phone calls & texts & sorries about cheating on you—you want my sister to know what it feels like to be shut out, to be the person behind a closed door, screaming & crying yourself melted.

Read more from Issue 19.2.