For seven days straight, I’d dreamed of snapping green beans at my Nana’s feet, on the floor in the dining room, up…
My favorite book as a child was The People Could Fly. I stared with fascination at the illustrations of people with backs…
Ukwangala kwachila ulupwa. Friendship surpasses family. Bemba proverb My sister came to me a few months after I turned two, right in…
My mother never gave me the family recipe for candied yams, so I gotta figure it out myself. Everyone else already has…
I can’t remember ever not wanting to be a mother. The lullaby to first tuck itself into my memory was Rock-a-Bye Baby.…
Naomi smiled when she received Amir’s note to ask her out during History class because it confirmed her beliefs—that she was different…
Musu sat on a big rock. A beige bar of caustic soap stood vertically on the pile of dirty laundry at her…
337. It’s the number of miles from New York to Virginia. It’s approximately 3 two-hour movies or a season and a half…
I teach sixth graders by day and write anonymously for a local news column by night. I’ve never told anyone in my…
I like to find myself in works of art. Sometimes I see my sister in them too—our relationship at different times captured…
Sean is not you. Sean doesn’t drag me from bed at three in the morning, mouth pasty, eyes red, to marvel from…
The David story is now a bit I have down pat. First, I paint David in broad strokes—forty-four years old to my…
I have this visual of me trying to lift off of the ground so I can fly. Each time I’m about to…
“I like your locs!” This is what he said to me as I exited the car. I was enamored. For some reason,…
An old black and white photograph of seven smiling Black women posing near the rear of a car is one of my…