Liana Hirner

My Complicated History with Mice

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been hoping that Cora, the mousetrap queen, would be able to take care of this.

The words “vacation” and “Nebraska” should never belong in the same sentence.

I wasn’t expecting my first full-time job to be at a warehouse.

I’m only just now exploring places I’ve driven past hundreds of times.

Confession, and the elements that make up Reconciliation, became my safety net.

Knowing that a man who’s well on his way to becoming a household name internationally loves the same baseball team as you has to be a good feeling.

I wasn’t expecting a woman to lean out the passenger window, pointing at us passionately as she exclaimed, “I’m so proud of you!”

Just because I have the power to create characters doesn’t mean I have the power to make them do whatever I want.

It took us time to get used to John’s presence.

We walked a lot of the year, including the winter.

But eight-year-old me hadn’t learned about rhetorical analysis yet, so instead, I ran out of the room whenever that scene came on.

It was like England’s very own Machine Gun Kelly had strolled onto the tube.

I repeated the words I’ve heard from my friends, family, and therapists, hoping that they’d pull me out of the dark corners of intrusive thoughts.

Holding the tassel pole like a fisherman waiting for a bite, I sat on the couch.

Down in our backyard, lying next to our bushes, was a bird on their back, legs twitching.