my father and his sister, my zia, saw each other after 24 years. they lingered around each other. my father gingerly guiding her small slightly bent frame around the christmas day dinner table that was leaning precariously to the right. my father towereing a foot above her. when she saw…

When my cousin Lucy flipped her jeep at age 21, she was allegedly on cocaine and alcohol. she was estranged from most of the family. i always had an affinity for her. she was feisty the way my nonna was. Lucy was named after my nonna Lucia. she was in…

Being a first-generation Italian American, no one in my American world told me I was pretty consistently an anxious mess. in my Italian world my mom’s best friend Maria would tell me in a loud whisper, “what the hell is the difference? Anxiety. Passion. Life is fucking hard. You get…

When i was 16 1/2 my parents would go to the bank every Friday evening. That was when banks had people that worked there for years and would answer all banking questions until 8 pm on a Friday. My parents loved going to their bank. My parents were local celebrities…

Five or six mornings per week, I call my father. Before my day starts around 7 am I dial his flip phone. Before i can even say hello my father blurts out, “I had to go outside and clean. That god damn scoattolo was near my persimmon tree again.” My…

“I pimped myself out to Father Anthony,” i say when my sister opens the door to her beautiful suburban home. I gently take off my shoes organizing mine and hers. My sister and I were best friends until about 10 years ago. She was diagnosed with an illness no one…

I stood at the back of the catholic church. My atheist husband to my right. My anxious father to my left. My dark navy suede adidas soles lifted by the back wall. Breathe in love ………….. Breathe out peace, i silently tell myself. My eyes closed until my father says…

i forgot for awhile maybe a few years or a decade what it was like to feel alone. when the love of others was conditional. like the way you made me feel under the blurred moon. words flowed from your mouth like i had never heard before bottled like the…