If Only I Had Told Her

by Laura Nowlin

She is the most confident and insecure person I’ve ever known.

Sometimes love is heavy, but tonight it is making me light and free.

Not wanting to be dead isn’t quite the same as wanting to be alive. There’s a gray space in between where one knows the desire to keep breathing should lie but is coolly absent.

“It’s not only soldiers. Anyone can have PTSD,” I say.

The world’s gonna fuck with your kid no matter what. All you can do is teach ’em to brush their teeth and love themselves.”