An Unkindness of Ghosts

by Rivers Solomon

People do not know what to make of me, and this pleases me. I don’t want to be scrutable.

Chalked with charts, diagrams, and tables, the book contained what a person could not—an order, a system, a rubric.

She craved clarity, transparency, and answers. She was tired of wondering. She wanted to get to the knowing part.

Fretting is for people who can afford to fret.

everybody doing nothing very slowly.

She could learn how to be brave again in a foreign skin.

Memories could not be unmemoried, only shuffled so as not to be in the forefront of things.

the past swooping in, an unkindness of ghosts.

we get to decide what our bodies are or are not,”

Pretty was a strange thing to concern oneself over. Pretty was subjective and fallacious. Pretty couldn’t be replicated in a lab.