HeyJaredThe Bad Enough Mother: A Defense
A literary defense of bad mothering; a phenomenological (in the broad sense) exploration of drugs, hope, and other forms of magical thinking; an apology to my son Aubrey and anyone who uses drugs
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
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- Sep 23, 2026
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- Jul 22, 2026
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Flower, pistol, stamen, style (opens the original)
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I wanted to understand, but not with my mind. I needed to use my body.I swallowed the capsule. I ate the seed. Everything that has once flowered can be consumed.I joined a conversation with a dead son, who pointed out to me that there was work to be done.I hauled out the old laptop, the one missing a third of its keys. I typed firmly to make the letters appear. I went to the cupboard in the laundry room, took down a box of papers, and found the manual to the whipper snipper among a pile of recei
Means--A manifesto (opens the original)
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Let your teeth grow crookedI let my teeth grow crooked.Let the wane white hairs fall out.I let my hair fall out.Let the tomatoes ripen in a quiet room.They are green. I will let them ripen.You are fifty-five.I am fifty-five, shocked to still be alive!I wander around in a bikini, painting the house. Do not drag your body to a place it does not love.I can barely drag myself to my job. Let rain arrive from the north, great piles of grey clouds. Pull in the tomatoes while they are still green.I pull
Rituals, sequins, sunlight, poverty (opens the original)
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I stand in the Dollarama beside a woman in a hijab. We consult the choices side by side, not speaking, not knowing one another, but bound by the similarity of our child’s birth time.There are balloons: red, yellow, opalescent, pink, turquoise, gold, silver. Streamers of cheap metallic plastic, curled into arabesques or spirals. And flimsy flashy banners: Some say, Happy Birthday. Some say, Birthday Boy, or Congratulations.There are tiaras in silver plastic encrusted with pink plastic rubies.It’s
Sex, drugs, and gardening (opens the original)
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I have witnessed a red squirrel bury a nut with the frenetic energy of a zealot, remembering and forgettingthe awesome synchronicity that nirvana and avenir (French for future) can be created from the same lettersor, that as I lay on the lawn of my house the last week of August consulting the vast sky and hearing from a great distance the roar of an approaching car, saw my son as he would be had he not died: an aging man, genial, a bit of a bozo, with grandchildren, optimistic, fuddy-duddy, spar
Two cats, a mom, a dad, a son, and an ex lover (opens the original)
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A full heart means sitting in the morning kitchen in late summer and looking to the southeast sky where last night’s eclipsed full moon grew finger nail thin and then wholly round againI should begin thinking about more than myselfIn other words, I am expectingwhich is a phrase we use to describe someone who is pregnantor who looks toward the futureA woman once said, time is deathor death is timeI want to be like herThe cats had to be called back from a great distancewhere distance equals timeL
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