What I Say When My Son Feels Small

By Briana Feinberg

You are unfathomably infinitesimal—our entire planet is a mere tenth of a pixel seen from the edge of our solar system, four billion miles away; so minuscule that all 7.7 billion earthlings could fit inside our sun a million times, and that same sun could fit inside UY Scuti, our galaxy's largest star, another 1700 times, that star being so large that a single revolution around it would take 10,000 years, that is to say this December would mark the end of an orbit that began long before the oldest ancestors on our family tree lived, before Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart and George Washington and Shakespeare and Joan of Arc and Jesus and Aristotle and Hatshepsut and even Gilgamesh, an orbit that began before history was recorded, when the woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers were drawing their last breaths back in January of this very, very long year on our very, very little planet full of the tiniest living beings, of which humans make up only .01%; and that enormous star is one of several hundred billion in our galaxy, which is itself only one of a hundred billion galaxies in the universe—and yet you, my dear son, are made up of seven octillion atoms that came into being 13 billion years ago and have seen the interiors of stars, traveled through galaxies, erupted in ancient volcanoes, crashed onto ocean shores, passed through dinosaurs, and maybe even Beethoven or Einstein before forming the unique and unfathomable you.

Briana Feinberg is a museum educator, stay-at-home mom, homeschooler, and Buy Nothing aficionado, who delights in experiencing cosmic vertigo.

Photo by Cindy Dean Jones.

More Than I Can Chew

By Joey Hedger

You can bite off your finger as easily as you could bite through a carrot, someone told me once, a parent or an aunt or an uncle or a cousin—I do not remember—except that your brain will refuse to let you, they said; psychologically, you literally could not bite down hard enough to do it, because your subconsciousness has this little safety switch that knows you better than you do, that understands your brain and urges and guards you from it; but that must be wrong, because I now really really want to do it, to bite off my fingers, and I can feel this urge gnawing at me, causing me often to stare down, lick my lips, imagine they are carrots, imagine my whole arm is a carrot, and my chest and torso and legs, too, and it all goes orange, and there I am, devouring my own body, one bite at a time like Saturn devouring his son, his carrot—orange teeth, orange stains across my chin, peels scattered around me: If only my brain could stop me from this.

Joey Hedger is author of Deliver Thy Pigs (Malarkey Books, forthcoming) and In the Line of a Hurricane, We Wait (Red Bird Chapbooks); you can find him at joeyhedger.com.

Mirror Conversations

By Wendy Newbury

Mornings on the scale have gone awry, and I’ve had to call an intervention with my bodies; well, one half; the one I dumped for another; yes her; she’s back raining on our parade, though I’m certain I was over her; replaced her with a much disciplined version, a run for miles, calorie counting, green eating lean machine; one that willed me through thick to get slim; we were quite the pair; life changing; true out with the old, in with the new stuff; but you’ve become wallpaper, grown quiet as we’ve moved through the passing months; or maybe I drowned you out, invited her in again, allowed her to speak up, advocate for her place in the relationship, interrupting our self accolades, our high praise; I’ve forgotten how addictive she is, how she lacks control, barges in and grabs whatever she likes without thinking, asking; she’s reckless like that, going out of her way, driving across town to fulfill cravings, Welch’s fruit snacks, if anyone’s wondering; she tells cashiers they’re for the kids; they say, “wow, I didn’t know they came in these bigger bags, better than the small pouches, that’s great”, and she grins and says, “yeah, it’s marvelous”, then devours the whole 8 oz bag in the car; handfuls; sinking her teeth into every gummy bite; falling into that sugary cocoon of comfort; yes her; old me; I was sure she was gone; that I left her several years ago promising she’d change; she has to go; she will ruin us; but you say I should relax, take a minute, give her chances; plural, like we should keep letting this happen; I think it’s absurd; we can’t reason with her; she wants what she wants; you suggest we work it out together; look at her, she needs a team; balance, not banishment; you say to search for the big picture in our reflection, the silver lining in these mirror conversations; because after all, you need you.

Wendy Newbury is a writer and music educator living in the PNW with her family of five and her work has appeared in The New York Times and Roi Faineant Press; find her on Twitter @newburywrites.

Art by Verena Raban.