excerpt from Losing Flesh

Under the pool table in the basement, there’s a plastic bin for the stuff I want to suffocate. The pink blanket given to me by the hospital. “How to Live with Breast Cancer” brochures. The Percocet bottle, which used to contain pills I didn’t take. A piece of paper where my daughter logged volumes of fluid from the drainage bulbs hanging from the holes in my chest after my one breast was removed. The single gray “knitted knocker” prosthesis, made for me by a friend, tucked away in a pink organza drawstring bag.