The CBD oil is three years out of date. I reach for the last edible and it only takes a suck to remember it, too, is well past the recommended consumption date. Trazodone it is. Usually it helps me manage the panic at the thought of the phone ringing at 2:30 a.m. to say Mum needs to be rushed to hospital. It keeps me from drowning in that hopeless vortex of, “I want to be a good daughter but I didn’t sign up for this . . . .” Now, it’s for gagging in the dentist’s chair. I wait. I clench. Exhale.
Mridula Morgan is a South Asian cis woman writer living on the stolen, unceded Indigenous land called Canada. She is committed to using an anti-oppression lens when writing.