Dark

black hole crop(1)She asked me once what’s it like not to dream and I said: Nothing. Imagine nothing, the vast black of it. Like climbing into a mineshaft, the way my dad did every day until the earth opened up and swallowed him and a dozen other men. You’re not your father, she insists. But I am. I’m his hands and his little toe, the same sideways curl to it. I have his eyebrows and mouth, his stomach for jalapeños, a thirst for raw whiskey from a jar. Every night, I climb into a mineshaft and fall into sleep, feeling my way.

 

Sarah Freligh is the author of Sort of Gone and A Brief Natural History of an American Girl. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, and the New York Council on the Arts.

Artist: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

2 Responses to “Dark”

  1. Cody Schweickert says:

    I love the brilliant use of poignant images to describe the father–“jalapeños” and “raw whiskey.” This writer tackles the difficult task of showing the reader rather than telling them.

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