When I Close My Eyes
When I close my eyes, Gaza is covered in a radiant white light. But it’s not white phosphorus—it’s warm, it’s soulful, it’s good. When I close my eyes, there are no lines of people...
View ArticleBaby Fever
I’m not the most maternal of women, however matronly my body appears. And my body appeared ready at eleven, twelve, thirteen. It wasn’t just boys who came with their...
View ArticlePlans for Future Disasters
My brother-in-law is in trouble. That’s how he puts it over the phone. It is September, 2022 and I am leaving my classroom at a university in Boulder; one of the three universities I’m...
View ArticleThe Perils of Girlhood
The bodies of Liberty German and Abigail Williams were found in a wooded area about 50 feet north of Deer Creek in Delphi, Indiana. They weren’t far from the Old Monon Trail, where Liberty’s older...
View ArticleMy Hair Is an Archive of My Grief
I am at a networking event. I am wearing my pink cat-eye glasses, multicolored kite-shaped drop earrings, my favorite lipstick—wine-colored Rebel by MAC, a gray sweater, blue jeans, and my favorite...
View ArticleThe Court Trip
“Hey, do you know you have court in the morning?” It is 1:14 am. The dorm is dark, save for four menacing red emergency lights. I’ve woken up to piss, and on my way back to my bunk the officer asks...
View ArticleTo Have (Stuff) and to Hold
I set the box of our unwanted crap on the sidewalk like bait and wait to see who will take them. Sunglasses, a Turkish coffee pot, retro salt and pepper shakers, some white IKEA cereal bowls, to name a...
View ArticleEvery six months or so
I get an email from Ancestry.com. I leave it unread in my inbox, at first. I think about deleting it. I think, for the hundredth time, about unsubscribing and blocking. I think about canceling the...
View ArticleNgoại and the Coral Reef
After my mom tells me Ngoại is dying from cancer, I swim into the Atlantic and meet a coral reef. I’m in a country on a coast, not unlike the one where Ngoại was born—where she lived, and loved, and...
View ArticleWhatever Pose You Do, It’s Going to Hurt
I am sitting on a bench in the dining room of the Chateau d’Orquevaux, deciding whether or not to go back for a third helping of salted butter smeared on fresh baguette, when the photographer and the...
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