Reasons to Admit
by Gabrielle Griffis

Iris had a sixth sense. She could read other peoples’ thoughts, so she never went out in public. She spent her days in the garden, cutting flowers, gathering herbs. 

Her father was an architect. He built asylums, traveling the East Coast, overseeing the construction of brick institutions.

She was fixated on irrevocable spite. Her mind stuck in loops of disdain. Judgments hurled at her existed under the surface of everything. Unkind thoughts were like insufferable wounds.