On the afternoon I come home from surgery, I converse with a giant snake.

In truth I’m reluctant to say what has brought me to this place on a bitter January morning; reluctant to tell a room full of white people why a progressive, NRA-hating, middle-aged Black woman has decided, this late in life, to get a gun.

My housemate sleeps all day, makes art all night, and paints giant bees.

I find you on your back, on the floor in front of the sink. Your eyes, your beautiful blue eyes, are open, but you are not breathing.

Once you have a conversation, he can’t stop thinking about your husky voice.

These are cats of the developed world. Their litterboxes are freshened daily, which is the human luxury equivalent of taking a warm bath every day.

My father would always play with other children at the pool. Not in a disturbing way, but just enough to make me jealous.

I’m sitting by the edge of a lake, waiting for my husband to come and tell me we’re over, that I’ve bamboozled him into our marriage, and he can’t stay in a relationship with a fraud.

I like the South. It’s America’s side porch: a great place to hang out, watch the world go by, stay dry when a rainstorm hits as you watch and whisper we needed this.

It’s a traditional house, because every morning when the sun rises, when sweet yellow rays reach to kiss our bronze skin through the hand-sewn curtains and double-paneled windows, they only find mine.