My therapist asked me why I decided to come to her. I told her that I have become jaded. I am a naturally hopeful person but I fear I’m losing that. I assume the worst in men, but in order to do that I must deny them their complexity - in other words, their humanity. And denying another person’s humanity also in some way must degrade my own.

There once was a Mother bird.

A very, very good Mother bird.

Every day and every season, 

with every new Baby bird,

the Mother bird looked at them with pride 

and knew that she was a good Mother bird.

I was sitting in a coffee shop looking out at a snowy Prospect Park. I had just bought a newspaper for the first time. There is no blasé way to read a newspaper, it turns out. They’re noisy and unwieldy and take up an unbelievable amount of space. I felt self-conscious. I wondered if everyone at the cafe was rolling their eyes at the performative girl reading a newspaper.