Road

You know this and almost no one else knows this: but an almond croissant is just a twice baked one, a day old one, at most places anyway, and it’s magic how a sad, stale croissant transforms into a new treat with a delightful cookie-like crust. The barista making your coffee warns you beforehand, so as not to disappoint, that the almond croissant here is not just almond but also has a swipe of orange marmalade and not just almond paste and would you still want that, you said, resoundingly, 1000% more intrigued, yes, and… Read More »Road

Limbertwig

Mom found Tom Brown’s address in a library book. I imagine it was one of those books with a crinkled paper cover and yellowing pages and a bent-to-bits spine, the kind that smells like potting soil (because soon it will be) and is hard work to even read for fear of it disintegrating in your hands. I’m sure she was the only person to check that book out for nearly a decade. Luckily, Tom Brown’s address hadn’t changed. There are seven thousand and five hundred unique species of apple tree in the world, two and… Read More »Limbertwig

I Am Not Your Juxtaposition

In Amsterdam, I found myself in the courtyard of a quiet university building while exploring the city. Its brick walls were unremarkable, but as I looked up at the windows I noticed a familiar insignia welded onto the facade: VOC, the Dutch abbreviation for the East India Trading Company, spelled out in bent iron. Standing there, in what used to be that Company’s headquarters, I felt like a ghost. There aren’t enough physical remnants of Taiwan’s colonization to be evidential. Manifestations of our history don’t take shape as much as they remain invisible, a phantom… Read More »I Am Not Your Juxtaposition

Settled for Fitful

“There are three kinds of socks. If you wear red, you can’t leave your bed. Yellow means you can get up, but you must be assisted. Green means you don’t need anyone’s help. That’s what I got.” My mother smiled down at her stocky legs and green socked feet. “Want to feel my calf muscles? Go ahead, feel ’em.” I leaned over her hospital bed for an obligatory squeeze. “You do have strong muscles.” She nodded with obvious pride. “That’s because I exercise. When I had my knees done, the physical therapist told me to… Read More »Settled for Fitful

Room for Ghosts

On July 29, 2020, my grandfather lay dying alone on a ventilator in a hospital room.  On a phone call later, Nana told me that she was most attracted to his hands. “You can tell a lot about a man by his hands,” she said. Nana said that she liked the roughness of my grandfather’s hands, but also the gentleness of them. She liked the duality of a man who cut lumber and worked on motorcycles and also cooked dinner and raised children that were not his own.  I remembered his hands too. Hands that… Read More »Room for Ghosts

A Girl Called Mariah

“Where are you from?” Startled, I looked back toward the voice. I had just said goodbye to Neda and was still in the process of hanging up the phone.   A blonde lady was looking at me. She had braided hair neatly aligned on her left shoulder and was wearing a blue biking outfit with white stripes and a white cap with blue stripes. Beside her was a brown-haired guy with a bit darker complexion who wore a biking outfit, too. While still on the phone I noticed them a couple of minutes earlier parking their… Read More »A Girl Called Mariah

The Treachery

(after Renée Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper”) Renée Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” is a full-color five panel photographic installation that features twelve men at a banquet table with the artist herself standing, nude, in the center, a white shawl draped over her outstretched arms, as if giving blessing. When the piece toured in New York City, it was met with fury by then-mayor Rudy Giuliani. He said that it was “outrageous”, that it was “disgusting and anti-Catholic,” that it was a gross misrepresentation of the original. Cox’s initial reply to the mayor was, “Get… Read More »The Treachery

I Am Hungry

March 24, 2020 “I want something to eat. I want something Mommy.” It’s only one week after the NYC public schools shuttered because of the Coronavirus. We are still in complete emergency mode with no plan A or B in sight. We can’t know, because when you’re in it, there’s no such thing as reflection, that “The Pandemic,” has only just begun. I am here. Home. Trapped on the 30th floor in our glass box, high in the sky, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, apartment. I am stuck with Emmy, the 3 ½ year old who used… Read More »I Am Hungry

Legacy

Slavery. Jim Crow. School-to-Prison Pipeline. Now that our mule has plowed those forty acres, let me build a little house on one corner of it. Deep addiction, like jail, distorts time. On one hand, I was acutely aware of every minute, especially the time between fixes. Especially the time between being dopesick and getting well. Being dopesick is like Burning Man. Impossible to describe unless you’ve experienced it. Naw – being dopesick is one thousand times more miserable than Burning Man and people should not experience it, ever. Being dopesick is like having a cold… Read More »Legacy

Going Mental

My therapist says it is a disability, I checked disabled. My therapist says it is a disorder, I made a list. There are seven.My therapist says I will be pushing a shopping cart down the road one day talking to myself.I say, I already do in the grocery store.My therapist says I will end up homeless.I tell her a few of the places I sleep: Place I live #1: I live in a small apartment on the northside of the city above a flower shop.Fresh cut flowers gather in the bottom of the dumpster; I dive in and make a bouquet.My… Read More »Going Mental