"This is it," I whispered as my 2005 Pontiac Sunfire lost traction, sledding past the edge of the sloping curve, down a snow-swamped bank, and into an inescapable pocket next to a stump. My luck made itself known immediately: an officer from the county jail found me and let my chat with him in his… Continue reading Red Car versus Cold Blues
He left when he heard I was graduating. I wanted to follow him into the hallway and plead that I could drop my capstone class and hang around for another year but too many pieces of me were invested in matriculating. I wished him a good day and listened to the door shut behind him.… Continue reading Smashed Pear (entry fragment)
Though it contains true facts, this is a piece of magical realism. Read it in its entirety before becoming alarmed... I considered the option of suicide in a bathtub, four years ago. I dreamed of luxurious, hot, morbid release as I read the warning label on a bottle of drain-cleaner in my Grand Rapids, MI… Continue reading The Meaning of Life & Suicide in a Bathtub
I start building a wall over my common-sense in the next paragraph, brick-by-brick using the ideas of 'Faith' gleaned from those toxic books she wanted me to read. That Faith was made from inertia and introspection, which explains my over-correction a year later: I built a Faith on perpetual activism.
I wear an anchor pendant. Unhoused neighbors, in uncanny encounters, recognize it as a sign of faith, at times, and indicate it when they ask for donations. There is a subtle lift to being recognized for what I am despite not being sure what composes me, or how to express it — the nebulous, shifting… Continue reading Wrestling the Anchor: Nautical Impressions
Dear New York Times Staff, I was disappointed but unsurprised to learn of an article that saw exposure in your publication on January 6th. It portrays the Palestinian Authority as being party to revisionist and hateful education in Palestine. Having lived and worked with Palestinians for more than a year, I know this piece… Continue reading Hit Send: My Letter to the New York Times
It is 4 AM. This night is a metaphor. Sometime around 8 pm I felt tired and decided I would take an evening nap and awake at midnight to begin my career as a writer. What I never mention to myself is that this has happened before: I sleep until midnight and then reset the… Continue reading Reverse Exiled: Bill the Cowboy & Beyond
