Author Archives: Krysia Jopek

You can’t park there. We gave you the wrong vaccine for melancholy. Your ex has married and won the lottery. Your current spouse has a secret bank account. There are 38 more days of winter even though the groundhog did … Continue reading →

I cut my heart out with a kitchen knife and threw it in the sea at high tide because it no longer served me. I built a boat from driftwood to look for it, but it had sunk beneath the … Continue reading →

  Melancholia perched atop the Angel of Poetry on the Christmas tree, an invisible Elf on the Shelf there for maybe days. When no one was looking, she slid through the necklaces of tiniest lights across the crystal snowflake ornaments, … Continue reading →

  Today’s topic is entropy; the rotting side of the garage exterior wall that will cost $950 to rip out and install new cedar shingles, according to the contractor whom you fear ripped you off on the work done on … Continue reading →

I am losing things. My ducks are not in a row; they have gone rogue at twilight while I was watching mindless TV instead of the world news, unable to bear today’s tragedies.   I am losing my ideas and … Continue reading →

Waking to winter snow often requires every iota of energy; your favorite bathrobe on the door, a continent away.   The Ghosts of the House gathered around you in your sleep last night, you’re quite sure, in communal whisper, hushing … Continue reading →

The looming white winter landscape—blurred by dream. The fog is still with us.   Thirty-six hours of rain have washed away six inches of snow; now water dripping from the gutters that weren’t cleaned yet of fallen, pale brown autumn … Continue reading →

Take the last train before quick nightfall out of the city you love, where someone you’d been trying to remember all day once loved you.   Secure a window seat [and one not going backwards], so the frozen lights of … Continue reading →

After the torturous night of fever and not being able to sleep or write, Noah woke to words again—and the calm they created for him: a path he could not see all night opened in daylight, after dreamless sleep, to … Continue reading →

Noah Ranson was alone on New Year’s Eve and okay with that, he half-convinced himself, as he watched the flames of the fire roiling in the fireplace turn goldfish orange, scarlet red, and light blue. There was something to be … Continue reading →