I'm sorry, Paul

This year I picked up no leaves to tuck into the pages of my journal. I love doing that for some reason, but this year I missed it. Not totally, of course, the trees are still raining down colorful bookmarks, but I still find myself thinking more about doing it than actually looking at the ground for something pretty.
 
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This is how you interview an author. Kameelah Rasheed balances familiarity and interrogation well while talking with Wendy C. Ortiz and the end result makes me want to read more by both.
"I have the courage in my late 30s and now at age 40 that I did not have in my 20s. To be honest, some of it—maybe most of it—is a feeling of what do I have to lose?" 

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An excellent dead brother essay by Karen R. Tolchin.
Like a pervert poised to cop a feel, I looked around to make sure no one was watching and then I put my hand on Paul’s coffin. It looked as if it had been buffed smooth as a river rock but felt rough as a cat’s tongue to my fingertips.
“I’m sorry, Paul,” I whispered, rubbing my finger across the grain. “I miss my brother."

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I greatly enjoyed listening to this story about alien abduction over at Clarkesworld: "The Aftermath" by Maggie Clark, read by Kate Baker.
Mostly, you recall, you were left in a garden of some kind—communal, or just large—and you could not tell the owners’ children from other pets allowed to roam within. 

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Oh shit this is a great essay about reading and grieving over at Bookslut: Magic and Loss: Reading Akilah Oliver by Mairead Case
“My grandma died,” I’d say, or “I had a family emergency,” or else I just wouldn’t go out. It is impossible to talk about everything a person is, or everyone they were to you. Especially right after they go. Once I told my doctor I was late because the alarm was working wrong, which was a lie unless you count my brain as the alarm.