Shoplifter by Megan Hanlon

    Edna Winti CC



Shoplifter

My first Christmas home from college, I could finally see the difference between where I’d come from and where I was going. You held me in the in-between.

Standing in your moldy mobile home that smelled of week-old garbage, you confessed to being collared for stealing over-the-counter meds from the big box store. 

I felt your shabby living room start spinning in shock. 

You said you already stood before a judge, who gave you probation and fees. 

I sank to the daybed that doubled as your couch and asked what the hell you had been thinking. 

You shrank as you said you had only thought of your crippling pain. With tears pooling in your muddy green eyes, you asked me to pay the fees you couldn’t afford, and buy the medicine you needed. 

You said you didn’t want me to be ashamed of you. Oh, Momma, how could I let you down? 

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Megan Hanlon is a podcast producer who sometimes writes. Her words have appeared in MUTHA Magazine, Raw Lit, Variant Literature, Gordon Square Review, and other publications both online and print. Her blog, Sugar Pig, is known for relentlessly honest essays that are equal parts tragedy and comedy.

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