Half Truths

My mom’s closer now to seventy than fifty, and I’m more scared about how I’ll be able to pay rent than how I’ll be completely, painfully alone. That’s half true, if at all. It’s like dropping your cigarette on the sidewalk and watching as it bounces into the grass— you stomp on it a little harder because it’s more likely to spread. I guess I’m as scared as I should be. It’s going to kill me, probably. Fear is capable of that. Anyway, the sparks wouldn’t die so I picked it up and put it back onto the concrete where the bottom of my shoe finished the job. She’s been asleep since before I lit it in the first place. 

— ODH