You Feel It Just Below the Ribs

by Jeffrey Cranor

I HAD A SISTER ONCE. Her name was Elizabeth. My parents were named Keith and Ewa.

Why didn’t I realize I was a child?

Or that’s how it seems to me now, but hindsight is half projection.

She was in the Watercolor Quiet as violence ignited around her.

Maybe I shouldn’t try to psychoanalyze my past self.

What leads us to attack each other, when so much of our lives are spent facing the same struggles, the same fears?

But those interactions aren’t real companionship. They’re merely chitchat. And then I return to my solitude.

It is one of the universe’s deepest and cruelest jokes that it takes a lifetime to learn the lessons you need in order to live.