Still Life with Tornado

by A.S. King

I wanted to be the paper. I wanted to be whiter than white. Blanker than blank.

If I could be anyone for the rest of my life, I would be a little kid.

Remember this. If you plan to get married and have kids, find someone who will never say they are “babysitting” their own kids. They’ll expect trophies for just being there and by the time the kids grow up and leave the house, you’ll have nothing but contempt for all of them.

The glares made me uncomfortable, but I got to see a part of Mexico that Mom and Dad would never see from their perfectly lined-up chairs over the rims of their never-ending drinks.

After being in the real world from seven thirty a.m. to three p.m., I knew the resort was just a lie.

I beat Bruce in the capital game every time we played it. He never learned his capitals or his eleven and twelve times tables because his third-grade teacher only believed in states and multiplication up to ten.

Like staying up all night changed me. I feel like I am more than I was. I feel like I am less than I was. It’s very hard to explain.

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” she said. Nurse translation: It’s really, really bad.

He’s some sort of time bomb—Mom and I can feel it every time he walks by us and we can smell his two-day beard and his anger.

Inside my brain lives the image of a woven wire headpiece. It’s the only place it exists—in my brain.

Like: Here’s a museum of the things that went wrong and the ways we did things that were wrong and the facts we got wrong.