A Metaphor's Looking Glass

I don't know you. I haven't seen what you have seen, or felt what you have felt. I have never been ostracized based solely on my genetics. My body has never crumpled under someone else's force. My skin has never been bruised by rubber bullets and my lungs have never filled with tear gas. I have never been a suspect in a crime that hasn't been committed. I've never stared someone down, and I've never stood up. I don't know you. My heart has never raced from fear. But my heart has raced from love. I have embraced compassion and empathy. My body has raised people up through sheer force. My skin has deflected different pains that leave similar scars, and my lungs have filled with the breath to speak the truth. I believe you when you educate me about what needs to change. I am neither complicit, nor appropriating. I am neither passive nor aggressive. I am just here. If you need someone to share what you felt, to marvel at what you have seen, I will.  I don...

Every protagonist begins their own story in an ambiguous pigeonhole, wherein viewers can define the title character in the most relatable terms. The newest installment of Unsewn is no exception. The story follows a woman who never seems to achieve her dreams, consistently finding herself in a world that somehow feels incomplete. While previous segments explored her career changes, committed relationships, and several battles with addiction, this release attempts to delve deeper into the mind and heart of a woman who can never find the right direction to point her considerable tenacity. So, predictably, the main character leaves everything she knows behind her and moves to a different country to escape the confines of the routine.  At the beginning, her personal growth is palpable: her experiences reflect a series of uncomfortable interactions and halting forward momentum. She feels rooted in the idea that her expectations will all be met if only she is laughing and learning, d...

You can hear me laugh, neither loud nor hollow. It permeates you. It sounds like icicles breaking off the eaves of a shingled roof. It's not an unusual sound, but you can feel it in the tip of your nose. Like a stale memory or a song you don't quite know all the words to. You find yourself, subconsciously, looking for me. When you stand next to me, it smells confectionery: baking sweet and herbal. It envelops you. It isn't overwhelming, but you breathe deeper, consuming it. An innate heat radiates from my skin, kissed by jersey and lace. I have a magnetic awareness of you and steadily, the pull brings me closer. When I turn, my hair brushes you, a gossamer disruption of autonomic signals. You see goose-bumps race across the nape of my neck. When you look in my eyes, you are drowning. It consumes you. The connection is meant for two, just you and me. You are frozen in predation, voluntarily caged in pigmented quicksand. You feel incorporeal, keenly aware of your own refl...

At 3:30 pm, my hostel was full of old couples who had taken the 9:45 ferry. Choppy waters made for roller-coaster travel. Like airplane turbulence. I heard his voice in the back of my mind saying "Look at the horizon. It doesn't move". I felt the swells of the ocean, the lack of gravity in my skin, and the bottom of my stomach, which yearned to settle back into its rightful place. I love airplanes, and I fear boats. I fear them because I don't want to lose the illusion of progress, of growth. You grow out of motion sickness and into ten AM naps, short wiry haircuts, and the retelling of the same story, in perpetuity. We all reach a point where comfort outweighs perception. At 5:00 pm, my hostel was filled with individuals in their 30s, who had taken the 1:45 ferry. Their travel documentation spans the scope of Insta-filters, but messages are always a little too short and not enough direct. We saw the red-eye hours reflected in glassy gazes. My dorm-mate was asleep w...

Each bite of cake tastes better than the last. It has since you made it for me, since we made it for me. Every bite of cake reminds me of what was lost tonight. What has been found. What decisions are stupid. We are not getting married, but I wrote my vows. I keep asking questions, but you keep telling indifference. I know you are afraid. "The night is dark and full of terrors". Winds howl. Just one release. Just one promise fulfilled. Was history too dark? Did the hue match the future too closely? Why must you chime at 9 am? I think our frolic years are past. Passed. I believe it is a time loop. A no way, not this day, never again frame of mind. I think I can't choose to enjoy, but not on my own either. I can't and I can't and limbo beckons because where else can I find what is so terrifyingly ideal? Except that one bit. The scary part. That hydraulic, compressed part that breaks us for its ambivalence. I don't like that part, it is a loss in every cate...

My house is small. It’s a studio in an older building where they have been testing the fire alarms, replacing the roof, and screwing steal grates over our fireplaces because some people are stupid do not fully understand the care and maintenance that goes into functional chimneys. They’ve managed to carefully space out their projects to lull me into complacency before they commence more banging and beeping. I start to feel comfortable in my own house again; I start to leave the deadbolt open. They wait, standing there unassumingly, frozen like little sepia statues whose eyes follow you no matter where stand. It’s a construction thing I guess. And then, a new project begins, or the neighbors get a new dog, and my serenity is ruined. You know what is not a construction thing ? Looking in people’s windows when they are cooking breakfast naked . It’s not like I was making bacon – I wasn’t. I was making muffins. Delicious, home cooked, very-sexy- healthy-housewife muffins. With p...

​ Today, I am proud of America. Did you see what happened last night? Did you see people's passions spiral when they spoke intimately with one another? Did you see them, first scared, then angry, then sad? Finally exhausted, did you see them dream? Did you see the night when the entire globe reflected on what it means to be an American? Did you see those same dreamers wake up this morning to fortify their values? Did you see them concede with aplomb, and celebrate with humility?