Trauma shapes all our lives, in so many ways. We are walking wounds, but I am not sure any of us know quite how to talk about it. - Roxane Gay

When your truth is so inherently questioned, it is easier to say nothing than anything at all.

You are the joy in my life. I am a mess but I will be the joy in yours … When you touch me, you feel through me, through the ugliness beneath my skin, you make me feel, you hold me together, you push my skin back into its proper place. When you see me next, I will be wearing your ring on my left finger. I will say yes. You will hear me.

Late at night, when they lay together, as much of their bodies touching as possible, Anna and Parker had the conversations they could have only with each other. They tried to remember the before, when they were children and there was only one place to call home, one country, the flag billowing on windy days in front of homes up and down every street — bands of red and white, fifty stars, one nation, indivisible until it wasn’t, how quickly it all came apart.