He Never Gave Up On Me, I

Poetry Is For Me Eucharistic. You Take Someone Else's Suffering Into Your Body, Their Passion Comes Into Your Body, And In Doing That You Commune, You Take Communion, You Make A Community With Others.

Nobody Sounds Good Writing About Your Divorce, Let's Face It.

I Kept The Fingers Of My Left Hand Crossed All The Time, While On My Right-hand Fingers I Counted Anything At All—steps To The Refrigerator, Seconds On The Clock, Words In A Sentence—to Keep My Head Occupied. The Counting Felt Like Something To Hang On To, As If Finding The Right Numbers Might Somehow Crack The Code On Whatever System Ran The Slippery Universe We Were Moving Through.

There Are Women Succeeding Beyond Their Wildest Dreams Because Of Their Sobriety.

Your Heart, Mary Karr, He'd Say. His Pen Touched My Sternum, And It Felt For All The World Like The Point Of A Dull Spear As He Said, Your Heart Knows What Your Head Don't. Or Won't.