I look into the mirror,
Someone else looks back.
Her perfectly long chestnut hair
And her perfectly invisible makup,
And her perfectly blue eyes,
Hidden behind perfectly feminine glasses,
What a perfectly ordinary girl.
A shell of me.
A shell of my being.
I don’t recognize the girl I see.
‘Samantha, come on!
We’re going to miss the reading!’
I hear my mother yell,
Echoing in the cavity in my head.
Right. The bat mitzvah.
At last my cousin was 13
But she acted twice that age.
I’ve never seen someone
So sure of who they’re
Supposed to be.
I put on the pre-ordered dress
Destined for my shell to wear.
I push down the feelings
My shell isn’t supposed to have.
I put on a smile,
One proper for a shell going to a party.
I build a wall over my feelings,
They don’t matter today.
They never have mattered.
The minivan is cold,
More so than usual.
My father sits next to
My mother,
Who does all the driving.
I don’t know how she stands it.
I hate driving.
Phillip, my baby brother
Is put in his car seat.
A spider-man car seat.
Father puts an Ambrosia CD
Into the CD player.
Mother turns on the car.
Adjusts the mirror--
It never stays put--
and pulls out of our
Suburban driveway
That connects to our
Suburban house
That sits on a
Suburban street
Hidden in a corner in a
Suburban city.
Luckily, our Subaru
Thaws as we drive,
And so does the morning frost.
I avoid looking in the
Rearview mirror.
The clock turns to 6:00
As we round the corner
And leave our home
In Riverton, Utah.
Landscapes of frost
End when we turn
Onto the interstate
Connecting all the
Vital cities to each other.
Rather like veins.
It weirds me out to think
That each car is just
A blood cell, travelling
From ***** to *****
Taking its cargo
From one place to the next,
So I try not to think about it.
Trees climb up a rocky precipise
On one side of the car,
And on the other
Swaths of grassland
Dotted with shrubbery.
Distant clouds warn of
Storms yet to come.
It turns to 9:38 when we
Turn off the I-15
At the exit marked
Cedar City.
3 hours before
Sarah begins to read
From the Torah.
I am glad
I never had to read
From the Torah.
My family was never
That religious,
But my dad’s
Brother is a rabbi.
Very religious.
When we’re at his place,
He recites verses of scripture
Before every meal.
He doesn’t like my
Table manners.
Nov 14, 2025
Nov 14, 2025 at 9:10 PM UTC
I look into the mirror,
Someone else looks back.
Her perfectly long chestnut hair
And her perfectly invisible makup,
And her perfectly blue eyes,
Hidden behind perfectly feminine glasses,
What a perfectly ordinary girl.
A shell of me.
A shell of my being.
I don’t recognize the girl I see.
‘Samantha, come on!
We’re going to miss the reading!’
I hear my mother yell,
Echoing in the cavity in my head.
Right. The bat mitzvah.
At last my cousin was 13
But she acted twice that age.
I’ve never seen someone
So sure of who they’re
Supposed to be.
I put on the pre-ordered dress
Destined for my shell to wear.
I push down the feelings
My shell isn’t supposed to have.
I put on a smile,
One proper for a shell going to a party.
I build a wall over my feelings,
They don’t matter today.
They never have mattered.
The minivan is cold,
More so than usual.
My father sits next to
My mother,
Who does all the driving.
I don’t know how she stands it.
I hate driving.
Phillip, my baby brother
Is put in his car seat.
A spider-man car seat.
Father puts an Ambrosia CD
Into the CD player.
Mother turns on the car.
Adjusts the mirror--
It never stays put--
and pulls out of our
Suburban driveway
That connects to our
Suburban house
That sits on a
Suburban street
Hidden in a corner in a
Suburban city.
Luckily, our Subaru
Thaws as we drive,
And so does the morning frost.
I avoid looking in the
Rearview mirror.
The clock turns to 6:00
As we round the corner
And leave our home
In Riverton, Utah.
Landscapes of frost
End when we turn
Onto the interstate
Connecting all the
Vital cities to each other.
Rather like veins.
It weirds me out to think
That each car is just
A blood cell, travelling
From ***** to *****
Taking its cargo
From one place to the next,
So I try not to think about it.
Trees climb up a rocky precipise
On one side of the car,
And on the other
Swaths of grassland
Dotted with shrubbery.
Distant clouds warn of
Storms yet to come.
It turns to 9:38 when we
Turn off the I-15
At the exit marked
Cedar City.
3 hours before
Sarah begins to read
From the Torah.
I am glad
I never had to read
From the Torah.
My family was never
That religious,
But my dad’s
Brother is a rabbi.
Very religious.
When we’re at his place,
He recites verses of scripture
Before every meal.
He doesn’t like my
Table manners.
This is the first of many Searching for Sam posts, a new book I have been devising. Feel free to give criticisms and things to add/improve upon, as this is a very, very early draft. 😊