Insistence
Mea Cohen
Earlier today, I watched my friend marry his lover and I wanted to believe in something.
Meanwhile, the man I love is berating me in a hotel room, accusing me of trying to sleep with strangers.
How many people does it take to make a person whole? To make them trustworthy?
I’ve had so many lovers, I forgot the one rape.
The man I love slams his hand on the bed, where I sit with my knees pulled to my chest. He throws a bottle at the wall and begs for the truth about who I’ve been fucking.
We leave the hotel. Drive three hours home in silence.
Weeks pass without words and hands slamming. The man I love won’t speak to me at all. I wish I could say I feel nothing about it. I wish I could raise a bottle to healing. Bottle to bottle, bottle to wall.
Like a rip, the body insists. Not on truth, exactly, but on memory, on ache, on echo, on the rhythm of what happened and the void that follows. It does not ask permission to remember. It only repeats: I was there. I was there. I am still here.
Born and raised in Palisades, NY, MEA COHEN is a writer now based in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her work has appeared in West Trade Review, OKAY Donkey, Big Whoopie Deal, Barely South Review, and more. She was nominated for best micro-fiction in 2024 and 2026. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook University, where she was a Contributing Editor for The Southampton Review. She is the Founder and Editor in Chief for The Palisades Review.
The art that appears alongside this piece is by SELA RICKETTS.