Thousand Oaks, California I flew from coast to coast when I was nine years old. My father found work in August and…
Grandmothers Some little girls, with plaits and blemishes, cook rice and jerk chicken as the heat crawls down their spine in the…
It was cold on the way to Grandma’s house. Mom had plucked Tye and Jordan from their beds at some still-nighttime hour…
I took the longest strides of my life during my first winter in America. Race-walking in between classes as my nostrils felt…
“They’re making fun of my Arabic,” whispers my cousin as he squeezes next to me. I roll my eyes, unwilling to move…
The Traveling Refugee. She watched her ancestors burn and hang. In the land of the free. In the land of the brave.…
“Curse this damned place. I don’t want anything to do with here.” Holson, my best childhood friend, slammed the door and headed…
“That sense of the sacredness of words, of writing, has been inside my mind, heart and imagination for such a long time.…
I have big breasts, but no real figure, unless I suck in my stomach and pull my shirt tight at the back…
I don’t know how to swim. And funny enough, a little under 70% of Black people don’t. To make things interesting, my…
In the summer of 2018, when I was studying in Paris, a scam artist robbed me of five hundred dollars outside of…
1. The day my sister disappeared, the uncomfortable red hue of the evening sky and the vibrancy of the grass complemented each…
I. Places that I am terrified of returning to: Shitty $49-a-night motels with dingy sheets and showers overrun with mildew smelling of…
At the produce markets that populated Church Avenue, if someone cut in line or pushed her while trying to squeeze past, my…
It’s late afternoon as we climb into my father’s gray Mercedes. As we stay stationary in the garage, I lean my fro…