As I saw friendships deepen around me, webs of conversations and shared interests woven between nodes that did not include me, I focused less on being liked and more on being perceived as useful.

Dropped Pianos

Stories That Sound Like Love/Bedtime Stories

We were not the children my father dreamed of raising, vocalized no language for most of the first four years of our lives and after that, English, yes, but severed from our dad’s Bronx-bent speech.

Pokémon Forever

 I added “Born to Run” to a mix CD I gave to my high school crush and it didn’t matter that he never listened to it — love could not distance me from the hydraulic roar of death. 

Yell Jump and I Will Jump with You

As a way to spend more time with Noah after a month of late-night rehearsals and nights spent alone in our apartment, I was helping the Broadway Haven Players conduct their first act run-through of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Once I Say It, Then I’ve Said It

He would be as open about his feelings as he is about his medical issues. He would not have as many feelings about Big Vitamin. He would still have a too-long and-too convoluted theory for explaining John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Imagining My Father If, Instead of My Grandfather, He Had Been His Own Father

He is leaving the station, behind you, after you, and where is he looking? Are his eyes fixed ahead, or on his phone, one of however many hookup apps open and pulsing, or on your ass?

Matthew Mastricova

Selected work