My mother is coughing up half a lung while the bees sex. She crawls hands-and-knees on the carpet and thinks she is going to die and my brother is alive. The knives don't look so sharp yet. I am too small to touch. My mother's hair is abandoning her and soon she stops wearing the wig to work. Her sister will think she cured the death with her magic. Her cerealbox smell. The world before me does not exist. It is a story. My dad is alive. I have to remind myself of this. The room remains even after I leave it. The hair I lost is clotted somewhere. The stuffed cheetah is roadkill now. My used tampons are in a landfill in the midwest. I'm everywhere. Nothing shrinks in America, land of the big, the hungry. James who thought I was ugly loses his front tooth. Makes a half-court shot. The mother of my first kiss goes to jail. The moon is footprinted. My father has a child. Dorris sleeps in pirouette in case she dies in her bed. She calls when she turns eighteen, says hi, says her name. She dies. The earthquake eats a dozen buildings. The towers fall. The lock is loose. The spiders in Maui are the size of my fist. Sacramento floods. The waitress cuts her wrist. All the gold is gone. I am arriving. I am here. I remind myself: You are here.