Heidi Allum

Every morning I get up at 5 am. You are probably thinking two things: No thanks, or yeah, I do, too. I do it because it is my time. My. Time. No one else’s. It is the one time of day I feel any ownership of, oh, pretty much anything that happens after that. After…

I want to write about the fact that I have no idea what to write about. The vacant, empty feeling of nothingness, emptiness. Instead, to do lists awkwardly speed past like cliched PowerPoint animations. Clean the shower. Fade in. Write an email to families about what’s happening this week. Fly in from right. Plan the…

Her backyard was really big. There was a large pool on the left; grassy area and a huge swing set on the right. I haphazardly managed to shove my 13 year old self behind a tall thin shrub and the fence. I was neither tall nor thin, but it was dark, everyone was in costume,…

I grew up in poverty. In abuse. In neglect. I am not writing this for anything but to state a fact. Sometimes this means that I am socially awkward and inept in rather every day middle class situations. I have a house with two floors and a backyard. Every day, quietly to myself, my jaw…

1. The Past The silence of between tracks. That moment your finger hovers over the record button on the tape deck. You’ve waited all day to record this song. To add to your mix tape. For him. Him. him. him. The perfect song. The perfect pause of longing. Visualizing pressing the hard plastic into his…

My daughter is an A. Upper case and steadfast in arial font. In a square box with reading and goverment and reports. She writes well. She reads well. She follows the dotted line perscribed. The horizontal line connecting the verticle points in the A holding her together. Already feeling the pressures of perfection of Grade…