have you ever

have you ever smelled lemongrass plucked fresh from the soil? rolled it between your fingers so its scent lingers past present? have grief ever broken you open? made of your heart a scene of ruins so that survival is the only prayer you can utter and even that prayer...

we who are alive

Life is a gorgeous experiment.Or, at least, life is an experiment.Wild and precious and over too soon, Mary Oliver reminds us.Experiments are messy, indeterminate, unpredictable by their very nature.Wrought with failure, too.And so is life.Aren’t we lucky, then, that...

trans day of visibility

#1 The way it begins as a child – this right to call into question the very things they call “natural.” Or innate. Or fixed. Those stale assumptions that have been woven into every aspect of everything. We take that thread. We undo it. And yes, so much falls apart. We...

black joy poem

To be Black And have joy Is something to wonder about Because these days The ways In which hatred And scarcity And bigotry And genocide Crawl into every nook and cranny Of the world Have a numbing effect So. I wrap myself in the joy That holds me And animates me To be...

ritual for black joy

Our joy can be summoned sometimes. At other times it can remain a distant stranger, far from us. For the in-between times, rituals can call us home. —– I open my phone and scroll until I get to my favorite selfie. A selfie. I take in the screen. Surely I am no...