The Act of Disappearing

by Nathan Gower

heart can only swell so much before it bursts. Myra’s warm body is a buoy in my sea of grief. I enter into a prayer—one not uttered in words, but through my pulsing fingers and thrumming heart.

that same unnamed sadness blossomed inside me for the first time—a genetic connection that had lain dormant since birth, tethering me to my mom like mycelium under the soil of our family tree.

How would it feel to take up so much space for yourself and not be even a bit sorry for it?

It was in these moments when she best understood her mother, how the loneliness could creep in on you, how hard it was to simply exist in the dark.

People need prayer more on Monday than they ever will on Sunday—that’s