Natasha Yglesias
First Impressions
“Hello,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
“Oh,” they say. “It’s you.”
To be pointed at in such a way, when I am the one who should be pointing. It’s you, they say, and what they mean is: you were his, which is to say, you are the woman he now says you are. They mean: we have heard one side of a story and have found you to be what we have been told you are. What they are saying is: we have the evidence to disregard your story and your pain. But hello, nice to meet you, too.
Against my better judgment, I reach out so you can supply an explanation. I stand in a parking lot and listen to you make excuses. “I did not abuse you,” you state confidently, but then later you also say, “Well, you hurt me, too.”
How dare you.
I dare you to say that to my face again
so I can hurt you again
—this time on purpose.
Unreliable Narrator
I talk with my older brother about our dead brother. I do this to learn more about him. In terms of the antecedent, I guess I mean this both ways.
If that little boy hadn’t died, he would be older than me. I think he would be interesting. I think I would like him more than my living brother, who I do not get along with at all.
I am aware of how we mythologize people in death. In terms of my use of we, I recognize I mean I.
“I don’t remember too much about him,” my brother admits as we sit in our father’s dining room. “I was drunk, high, skipping school—it was a long time ago.” Then my brother says: “But I did see him, you know.” He leans in close. His eyes are comically wide. “Months after he died. I came home one night, and in the kitchen, I saw his ghost—sitting there in his highchair, looking right at me. He called out, waved a fist full of cheerios at me—like he was trying to send a message.”
My brother does not say what happens next. He watches for my reaction.
“Brother,” I say. “You were on drugs.”
Natasha Yglesias is an MFA candidate in Fiction at the Bennington Writing Seminars. She was an honorable mention in Glimmer Train‘s April 2015 Very Short Fiction Award, and her work can be found in Third Point Press, Lockjaw Magazine, Thin Noon Journal, and Waypoints Magazine. She is currently a reader for Post Road Magazine and The Bennington Review. You can find her on Twitter at: @TashaYglesias.
Malasaña | Hudson, NY| Cargo Collective | Portland, ME | 2021