and for too long after

“and for too long after” is a hybrid memoir combining poetry with creative nonfiction. It tells the story of a narrator in her late twenties making peace with her past. The narrative begins with two sisters sitting across from each other at a restaurant near Indianapolis, the eldest having just found her first gray hair. This simple sign of aging comes to life in the hands of a narrator who never expected to survive her adolescence. Through a series of poems, she recounts her lifelong battle with mental illness, culminating in a long poem detailing a recent hospitalization for suicidal ideation.

The setting changes in the middle section. The narrator climbs Croagh Patrick in Ireland, and her struggles as a novice climber are interwoven with more flashback-style poems. She shows how her father’s addiction, her mother’s explosive temper, and her own sexual trauma left her unable to trust others. Also, in this section, the narrator describes how seeking a BDSM partner and building a power exchange relationship helped her recover.

We return to Indiana in the final section. As the meal ends, the narrator begins to bring all the threads of her story together again. Just as her sister chooses to save the gray hair rather than throw it away, the narrator chooses to accept her past. But she also chooses not to let it take control. She has faced her self-destructive side, and it will never completely be gone, but it’s not going to stop her from moving forward.