Clumps of wrinkled, white flesh hang from grandmother’s face and pool in the nape of her neck like turkey waddle. Her eyelids flutter but never quite open. I stroke her left hand, liver-spotted and marked with bluish-green bruises…
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The e-mail message was as jarring as the sound of an alarm clock on Saturday morning. Especially since I didn’t know the sender and was in no way expecting it. A little bit of contextual background may be helpful here.…
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“If y’all weren’t so difficult, maybe it’ll be easier to get a man.” “Y‘all? Difficult?” I repeat the triggering words as if they can…
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The day Chiamaka disappeared, her father left the house in precisely three pieces. The first piece left at sunset, when the world, consumed by…
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No roads led here, this place like a scar of an old wound. No signs marked its location, no post hung with its name.…
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Virginia Woolf once said: Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money. // In fifth grade, I had a crush on Kevin O’Halloran.…
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My grandma’s house was always full. The hinges on the front door were almost invisible. In the heart of Cleveland, Ohio, not a side town along the way,…
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The Traveling Refugee. She watched her ancestors burn and hang. In the land of the free. In the land of the brave. They have known many graves. Unwilling…
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I text Alicia that I’m outside and when she responds, I’m already ringing the doorbell. the text was just a courtesy. whether she’s ready for…
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I sat on the couch of a woman who decorates her office to make it feel like a home outside your own. She has locs…
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I. Rose stood in her tiny, cluttered living room, trying to remember why she was there. “Go brush your teeth and find your glasses,” she…
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It was a bitterly cold November evening, fifteen minutes or so before closing when the young man first walked into Tia Adelina’s botanica. He was…
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When her reflection stared back at her, proud and plus-sized often went horribly in these pageants. Ronda knew her place at such events; had long-since…
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“Go back to Jamaica? You must be crazy! What would I do out there except pick-up bottles off de street and beg fe change?” Disbelief…
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