But this was a kind of joy, too, forged
If your news organization is comfortable suggesting to its 700K+ social media audience that “having a penis thrust in your face at a drunken dorm party may...
because the low of my back believes what the sea told it
misc.misc — Sometimes when I say “oh, I wish I were creative” I know that I am channeling the exasperation of all the art teachers whose classes I failed;...
O whatever God or whatever ancestor that wins in the next life
If you have been on the internet for a long time—say 25+ years—and even if you started being on the internet from the relative distance of a tiny island in...
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
When I was a teenager I worked for multiple ~summers~ in a tattoo and piercing studio; I’ve never been afraid of needles — a useful thing when you spend your...
No faith comes without cost /
I have found myself thinking more and more about consumption, and the costs of consumption. Is there anything I even really need that I do not already have,...
How many iambs to be a real human girl?
This weekend white supremacists marched, and folks suggested the thing to do in response would be to classify antifascists as terrorists. This weekend the...
Here, blackness isn’t a commodity; it isn’t inherently political;
There are a few ways to give people their flowers before they die. You can support their art — buy their work, attend the plays and the films, introduce the...
There is no end / To what a living world / Will demand of you.
Listen, keep going. Nothing we do will bring back the people who died in El Paso and in Dayton. And so we must ask, “what shall we do to save other people...
I give you / a legacy / of doers
“But if we don’t do this for each other, who is going to do it for us?” An entirely reasonable question, from a great friend doing a good job of forcing me...
What to do with this knowledge
I booked the full-workup physical (with bonus fitness test and “BodPod” assessment) because, as I told the charming and helpful medical professionals, I...
“Where I came from” is the sky, the ground, the sea, the very air we breathe
Sometimes you can cure a migraine with two Excedrin tablets and a large bowl of ramen to which you have added two eggs and two slices of the alchemy we like...
It is time to ask very hard questions and to take very rude positions.
What I want, I suppose, is for you to feel guilt. Not anger. Too clean, that. Too easy to direct outward at a convenient target and thence to move on with...
What are you demanding / That we feel?
The New York Times @nytimesPresident Trump weighed in on friction between a group of Democratic congresswomen and Nancy Pelosi, suggesting the congresswomen...
Play it away. Be ceremony.
Two very different shows I’ve been watching, both featuring interesting writing that also happen to provide incisive and hilarious social commentary: What We...
The first Pride was a riot
I’d known about Marsha P. Johnson, but not about Stormé DeLarverie, drag icon. There’s always history no one will teach you, just there’s always stories no...
I can’t get over that, & wonder if it’s true,
On a whim on Friday I left work and headed to a literary event at which I was (surprise!) surrounded by people whose books and poems and essays have long...
I am scared / is not a good enough reason to not get out of bed
I have not been closely following what is happening in Sudan, and I have been tangentially (at best) paying attention to what is going on in Hong Kong, and...
Eventually it comes to you:
On Friday I got home from work before 9pm for the first time in a while; that is to say, with enough time and enough energy left to do laundry and cast an...
i can’t stand your ground.
It’s June. If you’re involved in corporate rainbows this month, consider this. Because I am finding it hard to provide answers right now, I have been...
I say I, too, am a romantic,
As part of my “force myself to make decisions” strategy, I am two days into a longish-temporary-stay and being confronted with the reality of housemates for...