One of these willy-nilly posts was a poem called “Ars Poetica” (puke). It came out of a writing exercise I had in one of my undergraduate mixed genre workshops, the prompt being something along the lines of: Write about the moment you became a writer. Not necessarily the moment you started writing, but the moment that made you into a writer.

I think I have a lot of these moments, or at least more than one, but what I chose to write about for the purpose of the exercise was, in a nutshell, the first moment in my life when, at the age of 13, everything that had always been true and sense-making and solid was suddenly, unfathomably smashed and shattered and crushed and destroyed. A formative moment, if you will. And, as it turns out, that moment had a lot to do with my father. So I wrote a poem about that moment and about me and my mother and my sister and my father, and I posted it on my blog and then promptly forgot about it.

Then, almost two years later, I received a birthday email from my dad. (At this point, I should probably tell you that my father and I are not close. We are what you might call “estranged” if you’re into the whole brevity thing. I generally hear from my dad twice a year: on birthdays and Christmas, sometimes by phone, but more typically by email.)

Anyway, I get this email titled “Happy Birthday,” which seems benign enough, and it is for the first few lines. And then, out of place in a birthday missive as if he’s been hanging onto it for months, letting it fester and rot in the six-month gap between the only two holidays our relationship observes, he proceeds to air a grievance. He stumbled upon my blog. He read my “Ars Poetica.” At least, that is what I gathered from the following:

“Though we have not been in touch for some time now, I love you and think of you every day. I believe that you can love someone without understanding them. I do not question your feelings about what happened that evening in January 1997.  I have no doubt that it was a terrible experience – one for which I have repeatedly offered heartfelt apology.  But it saddened and angered me when you made a veiled recitation of it in a public forum following your visit here and I do not see how you found any catharsis in doing so. I would like to have a good relationship with you but it has to be built on honesty and mutual respect.”

I first read those lines while sitting in front of the coffee table in my apartment. It was my 26th birthday, and I was waiting for my boyfriend to come pick me up and take me out to dinner, just the two of us, before we were to go to a bar and meet up with a group of my friends who had set aside time in their weekend to spend with me. I was wearing a pretty dress I had bought just the previous day for the occasion. I had showered, done my hair, put on makeup (which, if you know me, you know means I was in a terribly festive/happy mood.) But when I read those lines, I suddenly wanted nothing more than to eat a three-course meal of broken glass.

So, my first reaction was shame. Deep, organ-squeezing shame the likes of which are usually reserved for small children who are still too young to realize that when they hide under their covers or place their hands over their eyes, the world has not, in fact, disappeared. My father has a knack for bringing this feeling out of me. I just wasn’t expecting it on that particular day. Whether or not he does it on purpose, the man simply knows how to make me feel guilty. Ungrateful. A worthless disappointment. I hated myself for ever having written anything that could have upset a single person, be they related to me by blood or a complete stranger on the other side of the planet.

And then, my second reaction was incredulity. Actually, it was more like blind, spitting outrage. (Here’s the thing: Dad’s grudge poem? My “Ars Poetica”? It wasn’t even a good poem. It was a lazy, sloppy, uninteresting collection of prose lines disguised in the shape of a poem. A dial-tone. And I’m not saying that as a shameful daughter; I’m saying it as an educated reader. If someone had told me there was going to be a piece of my writing that my father found worthy of taking issue with, this particular poem would not have crossed my mind, merely on its lack of creative merit.) Here I was, having found the one thing I was good at, pursuing it by way of constant practice and higher education–two things my father had always been a proponent of–and he was using that very thing to point to as the reason for his lack of fatherly involvement? No. Fuck. NO.

So instead of letting the shame win out, which is my usual MO, I decided to defend myself–Sarah the daughter and Sarah the writer. And so I wrote something that, unlike “Ars Poetica,” was honest and unveiled and heartfelt–something I could be proud of, regardless of the response it may (or may not, as it turns out) elicit from my father. And that, I think, is worth posting.

Dear Dad,

I have to tell you, frankly, that the title of your recent email was a bit misleading. To wish someone a happy birthday and then expound upon a grudge you’ve been holding for nearly two years feels a little like telling someone you like her dress, then shoving her into a mud puddle.

I can only assume you’re referring to a particular poem on my blog, in which I neither mention your name nor detail anything specific that could tarnish your reputation. I’m sorry if it upset you; I really am. And I wish you had brought it to my attention much earlier than now. But you know I am a writer–I’m currently in grad school, the end goal of which is to complete a book-length manuscript–and you know I write poems/stories/essays based on or influenced by my own life experiences. Creative writing is a completely subjective endeavor…I’m not a journalist, nor am I writing text books or other things that are meant to be referenced as Facts. I am writing MY stuff, as seen through MY lens. This is what I do and will continue to do, and if you are in any way surprised by this, then you know me even less than I imagined.

The writing I do which is infused with my personal experiences IS cathartic. But I never write anything with the purpose of expressing a vendetta, or the intention of hurting anyone. While it’s always subjective, I am always attempting to be as honest as possible via my own experiences. There are no “bad” guys are “good” guys; there are just people–flawed, human.

The fact that you read something that upset you nearly two years ago and have held onto it this long, only to reestablish contact by informing me of your displeasure on my birthday, is disappointing and hurtful. There are a dozen different ways you could have approached this. You say that our relationship needs to be based on mutual respect and honesty–I completely agree. So why not bring this to my attention as soon as possible? Why not call or write and say, “Sarah, something you posted on your blog has really upset me and I’d like to talk about it”? Why not keep those lines of communication open and HONEST, and give your oldest daughter the benefit of the doubt…why not imagine that maybe she’d be willing to have a dialogue with you about it, and you could come to some sort of conclusion together and even strengthen your relationship in doing so? If honesty and mutual respect are as important to you as you say, then you have to realize that it feels pretty shitty for me to be receiving such an email from you on my birthday after I haven’t heard from you, aside from your bi-annual Birthday/Christmas calls–when honestly, all I feel like all you’re doing is checking a task off a list–in nearly two years.

I think of you often too, and honestly, as our relationship stands now, it pains me to do so.  It pains me to think of how I sent you an email around this same time last year, detailing for you how [ex-boyfriend] and I had broken up and I moved out, was in the midst of a rather painful transition, and was preparing to start graduate school; I never heard back from you, and had to check with [sister] to make sure your email address hadn’t changed. It pains me to hear that you talk to [sister] on a near-weekly basis, are involved and supportive of her plans for the future, to the point that you arranged an internship for her to help edit a colleague’s book–the very thing I do for a living now, which you would know if you attempted any form of communication with me over the past two years, aside from the obligatory Birthday/Christmas calls. It pains me to see pictures [sister] forwards me of my-half sister, who I am inextricably linked to by blood and love unconditionally whether or not I’ve ever met her, and wonder what sort of things she will be told about her oldest sister before she even has the chance to meet her. It pains me not to expect anything from you, and yet never cease to be surprised by the depth of disappointment I feel from your lack of understanding and empathy toward me.

Since that evening in January 1997–as you put it, I have never been anything but honest with you.  I visited you and [dad’s wife] two years ago with the hopes of leaving the past behind us and starting anew. This, of course, doesn’t mean that I don’t have residual feelings from those earlier parts of my life that may or not show up in my writing, but in terms of a father/daughter relationship, I came to see you with an open heart and a clear mind–willing to answer any questions you may have had for me and ready to foster my love for you as a father, for better or worse, into a new, different kind of relationship. The fact that I continue to be met by suspicion and scrutiny makes such an endeavor difficult, to say the least. I have never expected you to “understand” me, not fully anyway…I don’t expect any family member to. Not Mom, not [sister]–none of you. Sometimes it’s quite clear that I’m not understood, but the difference between you and…[sister], say…is that whether or not there is implicit understanding, there is always complete and unequivocal Acceptance.  And with acceptance, there is real love.

We don’t get to choose our parents or our children. We may not ever understand each other, this is true. But I have forgiven you for what culminated that night in 1997, whether you realize it or not. I may still retain hurt, and I may express such hurt through my writing, but I hold no resentment toward you.  I thought my trip to visit you those two years ago was, in a sense, an offertory of such. You are my father–you are half of the reason I am ON this planet, and for that I love you and am unconditionally grateful. At this point in my life, I need nothing from you–not financial support, not job opportunities, not even love or acceptance. I have plenty of love and acceptance in my life. More is always welcome, but when you hold a grudge for two years and then decide to unleash it upon me on my birthday…of ALL days…honestly, I’d prefer you just go back to ignoring me.

I, too, want a relationship that is built on honesty and mutual respect. I don’t want to gloss over hurt or other difficult feelings just because they may be easier to repress. I don’t want to talk about the weather and trade generic holiday sentiments and call that a relationship. I want to talk about the most difficult things and trade the kind of mutual openness, empathy, and acceptance that fosters a real relationship and real love.

I’m glad to hear that you and [dad’s wife] are well and that little [half-sister], especially, is thriving and happy. Whether or not you and I will ever have the kind of relationship we both desire remains to be seen and is certainly not an all or nothing proposal, but I hope more than anything that you take what you’ve learned from raising me and [sister] and your relationships with us–the mistakes and the triumphs, the heartache and the happiness–to foster the best kind of relationship with [half-sister] you can possibly have.

I hope you have a great summer, and I welcome a continued, open dialogue with you.

Love,
Sarah

Awkward Sarah
Hopeful Sarah
Belligerent Sarah
Catatonic Sarah
Schadenfreude Sarah
Comedian Sarah
Naïve Sarah
Focused Sarah
Ebullient Sarah
Hopeless Sarah

I think I may be a sociopath.

Some students were dumbstruck, unsure of a particular word’s existence and not wanting to sound ignorant in class if they questioned the author’s use of an adjective that everyone else understood.  Others were outraged.  Words like “hiccombed” and “apluish” were a smack in the face to all their years of training in the proper use of language.  Some were even a little jealous, although they would never let on.  They hadn’t thought to break the rules, and here this girl was broadcasting her rebellion to all her classmates and the professor.

The students filtered into class that day, taking their usual seats.  Tasmina was the last to arrive, head down and eyes averted, mere moments before Professor Woody entered, his hair and clothes characteristically rumpled, taking up his perch on the desk at the front of the room.

Woody had worked at the university for nearly twenty years.  He always tried to remain a helpful, objective teacher, resisting the urge to let his personal feelings about his students and their writing abilities influence his treatment of them.  In such a subjective field, this was difficult to do.  He held a professional distance from his students.  He politely declined invitations to graduation parties and wrote generous yet restrained recommendation letters whenever he was asked, no matter the student.  Through the years, of course he favored some students over others, but he would never reveal such personal biases.

“All right, class,” he began.  “We’re discussing Tasmina’s story today, is that correct?”  He knew damn well whose story they were work shopping.  The truth was, he had loved Tasmina’s story, was floored by it, and he couldn’t remember the last time a student’s work had evoked such a strong feeling in him.  But his question, the same opener he used every week, was his attempt to keep the playing field level and dispel any suspicions his students had about preferential treatment.

The students shifted in their chairs, pulling their heavily marked copies of “Elephant Summer” from backpacks and binders.  Tasmina sat hunched over her desk, flicking absently at the eggplant-colored polish on her fingernails, pen and paper ready for the notes she might take as she was forced to sit silently through her classmates’ remarks.

No one spoke.  The students flipped through pages, pretending to go over their notes or scribble new ones.

“Who wants to start?” Woody prompted, and when the students continued to shuffle and avoid his gaze, he said, “Mary, how about you?”

Mary was a safe bet to start things off.  Always trying to say something nice about a classmate’s work, vague in her criticisms, she had nearly burst into tears three weeks prior when the class work shopped her contribution, a story about a dying grandmother whose last wish to be reunited with her childhood love is fulfilled by her grandson the day before she dies.  Granny’s dying words, as she holds her grandson’s hand in her left and her sweetheart’s in her right are, “Now my life is complete and my memory will live on in the love we have shared.”  Woody did everything but physically intervene as Mary’s classmates ripped her story apart as “formulaic,” “too sappy to be believable” and “Hollywood-influenced schlock.”

Now Mary smiled hesitantly in Tasmina’s direction and began, “I really liked it?  The main character is really relatable and I understand what she’s going through?  The descriptions are really vivid?  Like the stuff with the dumpster in the alley?”

Mary turned to look at Woody, begging him with her eyes to let her off the hook.

“Okay Mary, thank you,” he nodded, and her body visibly unclenched.  “Who’s next?”

Stefan, the blonde Canadian whose stories always consisted of poorly disguised metaphors about his one and only homosexual encounter, cleared his throat.  “I really liked the title.  I mean, initially, when I first picked it up, I was like, ‘Hey, this will be interesting.’  But then, well, I guess I was expecting to see an actual elephant somewhere in the story.  I was like, waiting for it, you know?  So that was kind of disappointing,”

Woody blinked.  “So…your suggestion for Tasmina is to place an elephant in the text of the story?”

Stefan tapped the butt of his pen against his cheek.  “Well, no…not necessarily.  I guess it’s more about setting up expectations for the reader.  I mean, titles are important, you know?  There has to be a payoff.  I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

Woody had his good days and bad days.  This one, it seemed, was shaping up to be a bad one.  He tried to give his students the benefit of the doubt.  They were, after all, still young and inexperienced, oblivious to the harsh world beyond the safety of their parents’ homes and sheltered college campus.  Whenever he felt the urge to laugh in their faces or physically shake them out of their idealistic reveries, he had to remember himself as he was at their age.  Idealistic for sure, and cocky, bordering on conceited, certain that whatever some crusty, burnout professor had to say was just a result of his own bitterness and personal failures.

He eyed the clock.  Soon he’d have to drive into town to meet his wife at Dr. Helbert’s office for their weekly therapy session.  Three months ago, Tracy had packed a small suitcase and moved out of their house.  Woody stood useless by the kitchen table as she washed and dried the dishes from the previous night’s dinner, her last wifely duty before leaving.

He remembered feeling blocked, stripped of the words and inflections that had flowed so freely to him for the better part of his life.  He remembered thinking that if only he could find the right words, the perfect symbols to convey with absolute clarity his feelings, he could stop her from leaving.  But the only words that came to him seemed artificial and vague.  Still, he had to say something.

“Don’t go,” he blurted.  “Things can be better.”

Tracy turned off the faucet and faced him, her graying but still luminous auburn hair flowing wildly around her shoulders.

“Better,” she repeated blankly.  “What does that word even mean?”

So for the past several weeks, the only time he spent with Tracy was in the presence of another man, a shrink who showcased all his framed diplomas like trophies on the walls of his Scandinavian-furnished office.  Woody and Tracy sat on the same hard leather couch, the length of a sports car separating their bodies.  Dr. Helbert sat before them in his designer chair, a slim, silver laptop poised and ready to receive notes on the state of the deteriorating couple.

Woody had grown angry that the only time he was allowed to see his wife was in these previously scheduled allotments of time, these “sessions” where a stranger with a half a million dollar education was supposed to know how to fix them.  A couple weeks ago, after one of their doctor visits, Woody casually asked Tracy if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee.

“I don’t think I’m ready for that yet,” she said.  “Let’s just stick to our therapy for now.”

Woody couldn’t contain his frustration.  “How the fuck is anything going to change if the only time we spend together is in a goddamned fish bowl?”

Tracy barely flinched.  “It’s going to take time.”

Time, Woody thought.  What does that word even mean?

He snapped back to the present to see Jenny, one of the class’s best writers save for the unfortunately large chip on her shoulder, shoot her hand into the air.  Even before she spoke, Woody could tell she meant to do some damage.

“Yes Jenny?”

She lowered her arm, took her time folding her hands on her desk.  “Well, since no one else is gonna say it…”  Her voice was clipped, and she paused dramatically.  “This story is just a bunch of made-up words strung together!  I mean, ‘figgish’?  ‘Barnification’?  ‘MAGALANT’?!”

She flipped rapidly through the pages, her voice growing more shrill with each word she spoke.

The students collectively squirmed and Woody stole a glance at Tasmina, who was the only one sitting perfectly still, eyes forward on her manuscript, pen held steady between her fingers.  Woody could swear he saw the smallest smile curling at the edges of her mouth.

“I mean, what the fuck is this?!” Jenny shrieked.  “Does she think we’re stupid or something?”

Well, at least she refrained from addressing the author directly, Woody reasoned.

“I have to agree with Jenny,” Clint, the quiet country boy, chimed in.  “I didn’t feel insulted, exactly, but the, uh, made-up words were a little distracting.”

“Okay, Clint.  Could you say more about that?”  Woody had to make at least one student back up his criticism with concrete evidence, before the whole class got whipped into a frenzy.

Clint sat thoughtfully for a moment.  “Well, the made-up words, like the ones Jenny mentioned, when I came across them in the story, I got sort of stuck.  I would have to stop reading for a second and think, ‘Hey, that’s not a real word.’  I guess it just didn’t make sense to me.  Why not use words we all know and understand?”

The classroom was deflated.  Clint had voiced everyone’s disapproval without a hint of venom.  If anyone carried on, drew out the matter to the point of redundancy, it would be useless if not cruel.

“All right,” Woody stepped in.  “Does anyone else have comments for Tasmina’s story?”

The week before Tracy left, a couple of mourning doves had claimed one of the light fixtures on their porch, setting to work building a nest.  The male dove retrieved all the supplies: twigs, dry leaves, downy moss, and brought them back to the female who piled them together, slowly turning her small, round body, making a spot for her eggs to fall.

Woody would never have noticed the birds’ activities had it not been for Tracy’s attention to such things.  She was shocked by his obliviousness.

“How could you not notice?” she asked.  “Haven’t you heard them singing to each other?”

Woody was embarrassed, and reminded himself to try and be more observant, but only a few days later he had forgotten again, and as he went to flip on the porch light before they went to bed one night, Tracy screamed.

“You’re going to scare them away!”

It took him a few moments to realize what she was talking about.

After Tracy left, Woody taped the porch’s light switch into the OFF position and covered it with a neon yellow Post-It note reading: LEAVE OFF DOVES.  This way, even if he forgot again, he would be reminded before he could do any damage.

The students who had yet to speak avoided Woody’s eyes.

“Okay,” he said after a few moments.  “Tasmina? Would you like to say anything?”

Woody always dreaded this part of the workshop.  He felt terrible for the student whose work had been ripped to shreds by his classmates, whose face always registered a kind of shell-shock, who would rather melt into a puddle and slide under the door than have to address the room, thank his classmates for their “helpful suggestions” and tell them he “had a feeling” the story’s ending was crap.

Or there was the student whose story had been praised and fawned over, the only criticism being that there was hardly anything to criticize.  Woody would find himself loathing this student once he was allowed to talk, addressing his classmates like a visiting professional, a pimply-faced teenager regarding the “craft” of writing, the skillful execution of foreshadowing and complex metaphors.

But as Tasmina put down her pen and made eye contact with him for the first time, Woody hoped she would be as unpredictable as her story and fall into neither category.

“I appreciate everyone taking the time to read my story,” she said, her voice plain, her face unreadable.  “I didn’t expect everyone to like it.”

The students waited, hanging, expecting Tasmina to offer explanation, more effusive gratitude, some kind of apology.  But instead, she began to quietly pack her things.  Slowly, the students followed her lead, some of them grumbling under their breath, others scurrying out of the room before Woody could ask them about missing assignments.

Tasmina was the last student left, leisurely reaching down to tie the laces on her left sneaker.

Woody didn’t understand the meaning of the word depressed.  If he thought about it, he would picture ceaseless crying, a carpeted floor strewn with crumpled tissues, late night infomercials, a ratty bathrobe and slippers, Chinese takeout boxes filled with spoiling food, unreturned phone calls, a trash can full of empty wine bottles.  If he thought about it, he would never picture a monotonous life with a decent salary, benefits and a summer vacation, too many leftovers in the fridge because the cook only knows how to prepare meals for two, a friendly relationship with the campus security night guard, a weekend spent repainting the guest bedroom a unisex color of Celery Green, a preoccupation with researching the mating habits and life span of mourning doves on the internet late at night, the persistent habit of washing the left-side pillowcase with the rest of the bedding even though it had gone unused for weeks.

If he thought about it, Woody would realize he didn’t understand the meaning of a lot of words anymore, if he ever really did.  Better.  Time.  Love.  Husband.  Wife.  Teacher.  Student.

Tasmina slung her backpack over her shoulder and headed for the door.

“Tasmina, may I speak to you for a moment?”

She turned and approached Woody at his desk.  He wanted to tell her something, and he wracked his brain, once again finding himself blocked, stripped.  He thought if only he could find the right words, the perfect symbols, he could tell this girl something good, something she deserved to hear.

“I’m sorry about my story,” she said, giving him the apology she had reserved from her classmates.  “I understand if you’re upset.  It’s just, I hear people use the same words over and over again, and I start to forget what any of them mean, what any of them should mean.  So, yeah, I made up some words, and maybe that’s cheating, but at least I know what they mean.”  She blinked, her eyes pointing squarely at Woody’s face.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he said.  “It’s not cheating.  I just have a suggestion for you.  For your next story.”

Tasmina waited patiently for him to continue.

“Use deraveled in a sentence,” he said finally.

She looked at him strangely.  It wasn’t exactly a made-up word, but it was the only thing he could come up with.  She nodded, gave a small smile, and left the room.

The next week, Tasmina was not in Woody’s class.  He thought perhaps she was sick, but she was absent again the week after that and the week after that.  Woody went to the administration office and was told that Tasmina, or Rachel Smith as the school records knew her, had withdrawn from school, giving no forwarding address.

For weeks thereafter, Woody worried that he was somehow to blame for her decision.  He wondered what he could have done differently, how he could have been a better teacher, mentor, friend.

Better.  What does that word even mean?

One day late in the spring, Woody returned to his office after class to find a manila envelope inscribed with his name sitting atop his desk.  There was no postage; the envelope must have been hand-delivered.  Woody opened it and pulled out a manuscript, a short story entitled “Daffodil Speaks.”  The author’s name was nowhere to be found.

Woody took a seat behind his desk and started to read.  He knew immediately that it was Tasmina’s story.

The first sentence read, “The green and gold lights from the city deraveled over the hills, a trail of purpulascence setting every blade of grass oblase.”

First published in Two Hawks Quarterly

As she continues to talk, I wink at the floral wallpaper and consider the tragedy of a broken zipper. The way things work as they’re meant to until, one day, they don’t. People are easier to replace than repair. We pick out new partners and build new houses on broken zipper burial sites, and have nightmares of being chewed to death by metal teeth.

Last month, my therapist’s wallpaper was different. She thinks I don’t remember; but nothing’s more permanent than the memory of plaid.