the palace has promised three gold coins to he who might find the pea troubling the princess. the royal room is full of goose feathers and eggshells – many, already cracked, seeping syrupy rage. overseen […]
i want to make a ritual of washing my face, i want to appease my peopled when i say i am a thing/ it is gentleness/ when i say i am a thing that does […]
What do you know? I tell my friend I didn’t apply for a scholarship because I knew I’d be sick around that time. She tilts her head. “How would you know you’d be sick?”To her, […]
Today, the pain wears pearls, sits politely between my ribs. I dress her in cardigans and loose language: “I’m just a little tired.” No one asks tired how it learned to limp. At the pharmacy, […]
The Boy Who Couldn’t Catch the WordsOur histories cling to us. We are shaped by where we come from.—Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieI remember trying to read like trying to hold water with my bare hands. The […]
[UN]detected Motion On good days, I move like anyone else (they assume) On bad days, I calculate each step like complex options (they never see) Hiding the invisible hunger of my gnawing pain: Take pill […]
An Insider’s Manual To Survival You count your breaths afraid to draw in for too long. This energy is too sacred, one wrong move and you’re buried inside your own body. There must be a […]
My fingers are folded into a fist pried open by prayer – a rose in bloom rupturing like my ovarian cyst. I crush my birth control tablets and pray to God for a better womb […]