Today is tender white calves and toes  The impulse to buy yourself flowers, kiss someone when the sun is still out A new year of its own kind – the sun tucking its fingers underneath your skin  The wet green waiting, your mouth tasting of tomorrow  We want to touch each other again, lace fingers…

Boston is an old boyfriend who I reminisce about often. It’s a relationship made beautiful in the past tense. At the time it was too dark to see my hand in front of my face, to see beyond next week, next month. But here was a cold, winter bed of becoming, the sense of being…

I came back from India over two weeks ago and I’ve been struggling to write about it. There’s so much I want to write about: complicated feelings of first world guilt, wondering how different I would be if my parents hadn’t immigrated, the feeling of belonging and yet being a stranger all at once. Being…

Valentine’s Day sales in the United States are expected to reach about $27.4 billion this year. That’s an increase of $6.7 billion from last year. Overall, a great year for the purveyors of teddy bears and heart shaped chocolates. Given these statistics – let’s not pretend that V-Day at its core is anything but another…

I went to high school in a fairly conservative, extremely white area. Exhibit A: A member of the Gay-Straight Alliance was spat on by a parent at Back to School night for handing out flyers. Exhibit B: I caused an uproar (included accusations that I was “racist”) when I wrote an article in my school…

I am no good at solitude,  It must be poetic otherwise I will ball it up and bury it amongst yesterday’s leavings.  Being alone makes me feel like I am burning youth, as if it is a dance that only exists under a watchful and appreciative eye. I am only alive when I am adored…

I am Catholic in the way that God is the first neighbor I ask for a cup of sugar. I am a different girl than the one who wore white and believed it was Jesus on her tongue. I am a different girl than the one who felt the priests oily thumb on her forehead…

On Sunday nights life feels like a death drop towards disaster. You’re angry at the changing of seasons, at the bus that was 20 mins late, the person who doesn’t text back after a great date, the men who slide oily eyes over you when you walk home on the late side, wondering how effective…

I’m 23 and 1/2 , or at least I will be in two days, and I’m learning how to dress myself.  Okay, let’s rewind. To be clear, my mother has not picked out my outfits in many years and while I have solicited feedback from friends and family on important outfits (we’re all doing jeans…

You say my name  and it makes me think of the first day of summer,  that old, new warmth,   slept in sheets nostalgic about the night before.  Walking in time to a song,  its beat swinging through my pelvis.    You say my name,  and it’s like I am finally myself,  years spent bending flesh…