My family locked me in the basement to give birth. Days later, they returned to find a dark red liquid seeping from the door. As my mother screamed, a voice whispered behind her, “Looking for me?”

crystalline and cold, that it permanently steadied my hands. If they desired my erasure, my sole objective was to survive long enough to incinerate their reality.

I carefully tucked the photo album inside the breast of my oversized sweatshirt. My eyes drifted slowly back toward the northern wall. To my father’s vaulted cathedral of fermented grapes.continue reading …