![\"Night](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/selfpublished\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/nightflying.jpg?resize=503%2C743\" "\\"Night")
Author<\/h2>\nJoy Christine Mlozanowski<\/p>\n
Joy Christine Mlozanowski is a writer and visual artist who enjoys exploring the intersection of text, art, nature, and the human body. She is a graduate of Southern Connecticut State University, with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and an M.S. in English. Joy also maintains a private practice as a meditation teacher and certified hypnotherapist with a focus on transpersonal awareness and expressive arts. Her writing and artwork have appeared in a variety of publications, and she currently serves as assistant editor at Pith Journal. She makes her home in New England.<\/p>\n
In her diary, Mae questions God as she and her husband confront the news of an abnormal pregnancy and agonize over the decisions they face. Needing time away to think, she visits her childhood home and reconnects with Will, a deaf friend who taught her to sign when they were young. After her visit, Mae and Will continue an intimate written exchange in which she confides her despair, while Will shares his own struggle to honor the wishes of his dying father, and reconcile his mother’s reluctance to let go. Mae and Will’s story is one of love, understanding and hope, and promises to deeply touch anyone who has faced these difficult and heartbreaking choices.<\/p>\n
March 30, Wednesday
\nI don\u2019t even know if you\u2019re a girl or boy,
\ngrowing inside me\u2014
\nworry about other parts of you,
\nstill unseen, that might not be whole.
\nI\u2019d tell you a story, if I could\u2014
\nhow when I was six years old
\nI stood at the edge of the river,
\nknee-deep, holding my net.
\nFish darted, circled, catching light\u2014
\nwater rippled. In one scoop,
\nI caught a quick of silver.
\nOn the riverbank, I untangled
\nmy small, glistening catch, tried
\nto hold that silver in my hands\u2014
\nfelt it slip, watched it fall
\nbetween dry stones. I knew
\nit wished only to swim again,
\nbreathe. Afraid, I reached down\u2014
\nbeyond wanting to run home,
\nbeyond my knotted heart,
\nbeyond death. I threw my net away.
\nYou are my shiny fish now,
\ncircling beneath this surface\u2014
\nrippling water. If I could
\nhold you, I would ask
\nwho you are, what you want.
\nI\u2019d find the water, let you go\u2014
\nlet you swim home.
\nApril 5, Tuesday
\nDear God:
\nI can\u2019t sleep.
\nI leave Thomas to fight alone in his dreams.
\nMy hands work in the computer\u2019s glow,
\nfilling search boxes\u2014
\ntyping and retyping the words Dr. Reed gave us.
\nAmanous: having no hands.
\nApodal: having no feet.
\nBut my search only conjures what I\u2019ve already seen.
\nIt doesn\u2019t show me a reason for what\u2019s missing.
\nIt doesn\u2019t tell me what else might be wrong.
\nI stumble through sites honoring children
\nwith false limbs, missing organs\u2014
\nblind, deaf, paralyzed.
\nLoved, they are all survivors.
\nA moth spins around my lamplight\u2014
\nflits like the ghost moth Will once jarred for me
\nwhen we were twelve.
\nThe night he promised we\u2019d stay friends, no matter what.
\nI sketched its wings before letting it go.
\nMaybe I\u2019ve forgotten how to sing,
\nbut I can still draw the illusion of night flying.
\nAnd maybe you, Absent God,
\ncan give me a sign you\u2019re listening.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.joychristine.com<\/p>\n