Danielle Dayney

Tag: women

  • Comfort

    Comfort

    In sixth grade, I strode into your bedroom to find you situated on your bed with your Stephen King book in hand. Eyes almost closed, but not quite. Settled. Still. Scruffy flannel pajamas snuggled your body. Antique quilts swaddled the bed. Your glasses had slipped to the bottom of your nose, like always, and you…

  • Sticky Notes

    Sticky Notes

    I bought some sticky notes today, a lesson I learned from Mom. *** When I was in my early twenties, she worked ten-hour shifts as a hospice nurse. Before that, she worked in the Transitional Care Unit as the Activities Director playing balloon volleyball and chair yoga with sick folks. And before that, she folded…

  • The Bitches – A Micro

    The Bitches – A Micro

    Your voices are sweet syrup, but you cut with razor blade tongues. I hear your slimy snickers and see your wicked eyes. I watch my back for stones and sticks hidden in your Prada bags. You don’t have to pretend. I don’t like you either. Photo courtesy of Pexels

  • The Moment I Learned to Really Love My Child

    The Moment I Learned to Really Love My Child

    That day, I tried everything. Everything. Still, she cried.

  • Flight of the Monarch

    Flight of the Monarch

    I was asleep on a bench outside my mom’s hospice room when someone startled me awake by lightly tapping me on the shoulder. It was Easter morning five years ago. I opened my eyes and saw my dad’s best friend hovering over me. He said nothing, but the sadness in his eyes told me everything…

  • Sea Glass Mosaic

    Sea Glass Mosaic

    you. you are a seaglass mosaic. don’t be fearful of your imperfections. they are what make you. i know the resiliency of your skin is being tested. a seemingly never-ending current of depression is sweeping up, splashing the places you’ve reassembled many times. let the wave reflect your courage rather than shadow your beauty. stand strong. let…

  • When a Friendship Burns

    When a Friendship Burns

    After high school, I moved in with the person I considered to be my best friend. She and I had the same blue corduroys, pixie haircuts, and infatuation with Brandon Boyd from Incubus. We were inseparable. We’d go out dancing three nights a week, get wasted, and take turns vomiting in the bathroom after too…

  • Sisters: Two Hearts Tethered Together

    Sisters: Two Hearts Tethered Together

    The young girl pressed her nose firmly against the glass and her breath made a tiny circle of steam underneath. Long brown hair fell all the way to her hips. “When do I get my bubblegum cigar?” she questioned her stepdad, unimpressed by the tiny balls of fury on the other side of the window.…

  • Breast or Bottle?

    At the risk of making a lot of people frustrated with me, I have to talk about something that has been weighing heavily on my mind ever since I found out I was pregnant with my second child: the “breast or bottle” discussion. When a woman is pregnant, whether or not she is going to…