Kate Ryan

Fresh orange juice, milk, thick slices of ham, a block of cheese, a carton of eggs—her husband kept it this way should this moment arrive.

My parents got the idea they’d send me to stay at my grandparents’ house in Florida for a week. I think my mother needed a week to herself.

I saw my old babysitter at a women’s wrestling cage match.

My tights are cutting me in half at the waist . . . just like a sausage in its casing.

One crawled up the side of the bag and opened her wings, a hardtop convertible with legs.

She knows you’re not supposed to call it an “it,” but she honestly can’t tell if it’s a boy or girl or . . . undecided.

Alma couldn’t understand why her Yelp reviews were so dismal. She didn’t advertise herself as a magician. She was a hair stylist.

She gropes for attention while he dies in the other room.

She got too high while watching The Bachelor and had a misanthropic breakdown.

Like booster engines emptied of fuel, my limbs become disposable, useless tanks as the blood rushes from them.