This is how to listen. This is how to pray before dawn. This is how to feel alive in your own skin. This is how to feed the birds. This is how to let them be. This is how to feed yourself. This is how to be free. This is how to get to work. This is how to sit. This is how to stop for lunch. This is how to move. This is how to let go of it. This is how to watch the birds. This is how to be very still. This is how to take a nap. This is how to wake again and go uphill. This is how to fold the laundry. This is how to call her back. This is how to unload the dishwasher. This is how to release your lack. This is how to read a book. This is how to dream. This is how to trust yourself. This is how to speak instead of scream. This is how to make a dinner. This is how to wait. This is how to eat together. This is how to mark an anniversary date. This is how to put furniture together. This is how to dance. This is how to admit you’re tired together. This is how to take off pants. This is how to get in bed together. This is how to take another chance.
Flash Fiction by Cassie Premo Steele
Cassie Premo Steele is a lesbian, ecofeminist, mother, poet, novelist, and essayist whose writing focuses on the themes of trauma, healing, creativity, mindfulness and the environment. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; she has published 16 books, including 6 books of poetry; and her poetry has been nominated 6 times for the Pushcart Prize. She was a Finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award judged by the current US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. She has also been awarded the John Edward Johnson Prize and the Carrie McCray Literary Award for Poetry. She is a recipient of the Archibald Rutledge Prize named after the first Poet Laureate of South Carolina, where she lives with her wife.