fbpx

book a free discovery call 👉

christie
chisholm
creative

copywriting &
consulting

Stories about grief

One scar, seven years

One scar, seven years

I used to have a scar on my left hand that reminded me of my first Thanksgiving without my mother. I wonder now if I can even call it a scar, seeing as how it’s since faded past the point of detection—then again, we all know the most unassailable wounds are often those invisible to the eye. In any case, it was there and now it’s gone. Isn’t that the entire point?

read more
Water in air

Water in air

It is quiet now at night, even in the city, roads and voices muted by the mad hush of rain. Rain against pavement is also a sound, but it slips through ears like it does through gutters, spilling over and out and rushing to sea in the way all moments and memories eventually do. But I imagine that tonight even without the rain the world would seem silent, no matter the city or  bustle or subway line. Tonight is made for our quiet.

read more
Motherland

Motherland

When I was 18, before I knew anything about publishing or pitching or rejection or acceptance, I tried to get something published that didn’t belong to me, but, rather, belonged to my mother. Years earlier, when I was only 8, she had written a poem that had become famous in my family.

read more
Pretty things aren’t always meant to keep

Pretty things aren’t always meant to keep

Loss will make ribbons of you; and while some messes can be twirled and fluffed to look pretty for a time, their usefulness is short-lived. We untangle them only to leave them in piles, to be sent to decompose with the rest of our refuse. Pretty things are not always meant to keep.

read more
That is the night that came for me

That is the night that came for me

Desert lights buzz like cicadas, the fluttery rumble of all those wings and photons shuffling against each other and stretching into an air so thin you wonder if it is even there. When all else is quiet, there is still that soft, eternal flickering. The night was hot. And quiet, for a time.

read more
Five years

Five years

She told me to never settle. She was frail then, but her voice was strong. She spoke of men, but I knew she meant everything. Don’t settle. Don’t wait. Do all the things. 

read more
In dreams

In dreams

Last night I dreamt of my mother. She had been gone a long time.

“Can you stay?” I asked her. “I never get to see you.”

She didn’t answer, and instead pointed to my chest. 

“Your heart is bigger than it was last time,” she said, more observation than offering. “But it still has room to grow.”

read more
The peacocks

The peacocks

Cait named one of them Charlemagne, though really they are all named Charlemagne. Ask me on a different day and I’ll tell you that’s only what we call the Albino one. The other two have yet to be named, because I cannot tell them apart.

read more
Christie Chisholm Creative