the spaghetti and the sadness

she cooked up spaghetti probably from a can with jeremy's whole life in her hands but the stove was too hard the summer it rained and rained and the guinea pigs escaped from ella's bedroom putting their whole lives in mom's hands they dreamed of marbled halls but ate chef boyardee ravioli straight from the can the summer it rained and rained she put the doll beside her plate even as the dream of marbled halls faded the summer it rained and rained the birds sang the wrong tunes and made her feel sad especially for the guinea pigs the birds didn't know any better shaking off the remains of fear because the ground was too hard for the holy family on a saturday night so they felt sad and their sadness took the form of heartfelt prayer mom opened another can of spaghetti the rain was falling harder but she shook off her fear of the lawbreakers infesting the city liberated by her old customer the archbishop it was all so sad, so sad sources: a girl is a half-formed thing, by eimear mcbride; the facades, by eric lundgren; the shock of the fall, by nathan filer; love me back, by merritt tierce; the undertaking, by audrey magee; dept of speculation, by jenny offill; nw, by zadie smith; all the birds, singing, by evie wyld; the laughing monsters, by denis johnson; the anatomy of dreams, by chloe benjamin; how to build a girl, by caitlin moran; rainey royal, by dylan landis; nora webster, by colm toibin - amazon suggested these books to people "looking for something in our literature and fiction department"