Tag Archives: Flash Nonfiction

by Emily Schulten

I lied when I said that it all went back to normal. 

It’s like the knife is pulled from my belly every time I see a friend’s belly grow round, see her gentle palm rest on the notch the growing child—the growing child—makes between her breasts and the new life. 

And then I’m hemorrhaging all over again. It spills and pools at my feet and I walk around this way, smiling, doting, congratulating, arms full of yellow dahlias, pink hydrangeas, and red anemones of celebration, all the time trying to pretend it’s not puddling, to figure out how to clean the blood from my feet, from my soles where it embeds into the crevices, the lifelines of my footsteps, how to hide the tracks on the carpet, the tile, the pavement that look like my alive son’s ink-stamped hospital prints.  Continue reading →