The days plod on like a pair of ugly shoes, the kind my mom wears to the hospital. Today is no different, except maybe my undereye circles are a little darker than they were yesterday. A long weekend of sleep will help, but there is still Friday to get through.

The kitchen table is cluttered with insomnia art projects, but cleanup can wait—Mom is doing a double shift and won’t be home till early tomorrow morning. I finger the pile of hacked-up photos I found last night in the back of the art cupboard. After the divorce, when my mom went to therapy, she’d do a weekly mood board. I found them on a closet-snooping expedition when I was ten. Many featured erupting volcanoes and dismembered photos of my dad, which explained the lone torsos in the envelope.

Not all the pictures were mutilated, though. There was a series of photos of my mom and dad I didn’t recognize. I don’t know how long I sat there gazing at the ginger-ponytailed hippie version of my now totally absent father and my supercute sixties mom, her brown legs long and glossy under a hot-pink miniskirt. Without thinking, I cut them out, two tiny finger-sized paper dolls. I made them dance a little to the college radio station I’d discovered at the end of the summer, bopping their paper brains out to the Ramones. Then, before I realized what I was doing, both images were laid out for surgery. When I was done, they were shiny with Mod Podge and sparkling with a light coat of glitter.

Now, even though I’m borderline late, I grab my tiny glittery parents like my fingers know something I don’t and bore holes in the tops of their heads. In the cigar box of jewelry-making stuff are a pair of earring wires. I pop them through the holes and slide the earrings in my ears. A month ago, I would never have gone to school like this: unbrushed hair in a messy bun, yesterday’s eyeliner traced over with a second coat of black, paper-doll earrings, and my mom’s old army jacket—but honestly, I could probably show up for school naked these days and it would be third period by the time someone even noticed.