Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
We all had our own talents, ways of coping with the mirror monster, whatever that looked like for you, always mocking gestures and laughing to your face as you wept with the weight of it all. You held yourself together one way, and I another and these are the girls Read more
Dineen skillfully dug her purple latex-swathed fingers into my bare left shoulder blade, and I yelped, “O-o-o-uch!” “Sor-ry!” Dineen cheerfully apologized. If I didn’t know better, I would think that she enjoyed torturing me. But this wasn’t that kind of relationship. Dineen is a petite, dark-haired, twenty-something Filipina physical therapist Read more
Why does our new house always feel dark? Some nights, the darkness steals my sleep, seeping from the corners of my bedroom. Is the house gloomy, or the people inside? The backyard looks so light, so bright, but it’s merely the snow’s reflection. My mother has a new bird book, Read more
It’s been over six years now, since I last spoke to my father: mid-summer, July 15th, 2014. I was in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he was lying on a gurney at a funeral home — dead as a doornail. To hide the incisions of his autopsy, the back Read more
V1This string of lights I hold in my hands always looks so prettySo bright, so perfect and hangs just soEach bulb is where it is meant to beThere are no knots in the wireOr broken filaments And each part hangs just where I want itAll making sense way up high on Read more
I discover kernels, in poems. The shell breaks open to a singed blossom of hair. Before I spit the weirdness out, I savor it a reeling storm in my nose and mouth. For a split second, I see a topiary. I awake to dreams, perhaps they are catchers to my Read more
The day after spending Christmas with family, I received a text message from a close relative. You are a self-centered piece of crap. Good riddance. You’re not welcome here ever again. Period. Everything was planned at our expense. What the fuck did I plan? What the fuck is everything? I Read more
