My Last Innocent Year

by Daisy Alpert Florin

My mother hadn’t warned me about any of this.

For Miriam and her parents, the haunting was the war; for my family, it was cancer.

Men admire each other when they are at their best, but women enjoy meeting each other in pits of despair.

“It’s not your responsibility.” But whose was it, I wondered? Who was there to catch us if not our friends?

He kissed me and I went liquid. The room was cold and dark, but inside I was fire, heat, blue, blue flame. He kissed me and I was awake. He kissed me and I was alive.

We need women. Somewhere along the way the balance shifts and all these boys you pine for now become men who are very afraid of being alone.”

I no longer knew what was inside me, only that I never again found a door I couldn’t open. He held the key to my undoing, and I let him undo everything.

we tell ourselves what we need to to survive.