a penchant for pretty words

When I moved in with him at the age of twenty-three, my father and I started what would certainly have been a typical father-daughter relationship had we lived together while I was enrolled in high school. He gave me a key to the house that I attached to my koala key chain, cautioned me against speaking to strangers, and spoke to me nightly about the dangers of falling into the “wrong crowd”. While for me, the “wrong crowd” was comprised of right-wing bigots, homophobes, and any other human being not devoted to the betterment of mankind; for my father, it meant a group of seemingly kindred spirits who would undoubtedly win my naïve affection and then case the house for valuables they could sell for drugs.

Twice burned by such individuals who robbed him more of his sense of security and faith in humanity, I could hardly blame him when, as he packed his car for a weekend trip, he left me with strict instructions not to let any man, woman, or child into the house while he was gone. Lost dogs, three-alarm fires, and car-wrecks be damned; I would send them on their way or calm any wayward traveler through my side of the keyhole until the paramedics arrived. Even the mailman, with whom I was now on a first-name basis, was not to be trusted.

As Dad’s Subaru disappeared around the corner, I closed the front door and slid down the other side to the floor despairing in the knowledge that when his car crossed the border, there wouldn’t be a single human being I knew in West Virginia.


I'd always thought that there came a time in everyone's life, where you would be forced to learn to appreciate your own company--to respect and admire the voice of the narrator and the clarity they brought to what you hoped would become a movie script ending to your life.

Commanding correction from the rim of a megaphone, my narrator interrupts the resounding stillness and peace of laundry and dishes with recaps of missed opportunities and half-finished conversations that have long since ended. Never have I been forced to address the obsessive, condescending prattle that continually picks apart my dreams, my most basic human interactions, and the cowlick that splits bangs across my forehead with such vigor as during those four days in the empty house.

I plugged my ears with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and ran vigorously on the treadmill in the basement. Excessive and obsessive as are most of my pursuits when indulged in with conviction, I resolved to run in the upcoming marathon in town on November 7th. Lack of credentials aside, I would achieve my athletic potential at the expense of my love-handles and hips.