It wasn’t easy growing up so far away from close family. All of my mother’s siblings and her parents lived below the…
Today is our long day. We need to drive nearly 200 miles to cross state lines. Mom and I take shifts, plying…
“I’m sorry for your loss. Though the coroner’s report said your father departed on June 29th, July 1 (2005) will be the…
When I was surrounded by white people, knee-length plaid skirts, and crucifixes, I told my mom I wanted my hair to look…
Quickly and carefully, I crossed the street with my best friend at the time. Her name was Jalia, a tall and skinny…
My mother’s eyes are bulging, glassy and wild, almost spinning in their sockets with fear. Her cracked lips are pulled back from…
I watched from my seat in the sparsely populated bleachers as the swimmers began to assemble for the first race. Underlying the…
I don’t remember how old I was when my parents bought the brown metallic closet with the mirror on the front, but…
I climbed the stairs to Aunt Tee’s apartment. The hallway was dark but the semi-opened blinds let in a hint of sunlight…
I remember the time you left your phone at home in our first apartment. It was an old loft close to campus.…
Virginia Woolf once said: Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and…
By age 6, I knew what nostalgia meant, and it already felt like a dirty word. Nostalgia was a lecture about old…
“African-American girls always score higher than their white peers when it comes to self-esteem,” one of my High School teachers lectured. I…
Let me start by giving my parents the grace they deserve. My mother was only sixteen when she had me, and the…
It’s morning again. The cold outside beats against everything it encounters and my old bedroom windows tremble, struggling to keep the warmth…
I changed jobs earlier in the year. It was the type of job that had me jump from plane to plane and…