November 17, 2022 - “Lace Up” by Elizabeth Lerman

They tell her to forget the blades beneath her feet, tell her to lace up and forget about the fear, and she wants to, would love to, really, but something about the way the skates scrape the ice makes her blood go cold, and she’s at the rink, she knows it is supposed to be cold, but she is seeing something she cannot describe, feeling something strange that does not belong in her body, and she has been here before, so many times, in fact, that she could walk the length of it with her eyes closed but then, she knows, the bright lights would be gone and she would hear only the blades as they slice through slick and sprawling ground.