part 1: (child) When I was a child, my favorite flowers were tulipa tardas, these tiny pale yellow star-shaped blossoms. In the spring, they are the first to bloom and the first to die,Continue reading
The Sweetest of Wars
There are some girls who can wear sadness like it’s a gossamer negligee falling over their shoulders; sadness takes to them beautifully, the way morning mists take to a sunrise, and when these girls weep,Continue reading
This I Believe: Balancing Beauty and Intelligence
I have never been a beautiful girl. I am pretty, perhaps, but nothing more. For a long time, I didn’t notice, because my lack of physical beauty made me no less striking to the peopleContinue reading
The Anatomy of a Loss
Last November, the final petal curled its softness into bone (and my mouth tasted bruised for weeks). Death has a name that sounds like silk sliding over the ground, but she is not so soft:Continue reading
Girl of Glass
They say a child can swim in the veins of a blue whale, that the vessels are just big enough for the slender body of a little girl. I would have fit perfectly, thin andContinue reading
Behind My Skin
There is something living inside of me. It blooms out from between my lips like a bouquet of diseased flowers I have kept pressed beneath my tongue for so long that my mouth has memorizedContinue reading
The Saltwater Woman
I have always been just a little too sweet for my own good, a little bit too nice, all chocolate eyes and caramel skin, it’s as if my body has been bathed in rosewater IContinue reading
Cocaine Symphonies
There is this music I hear. It sounds exactly the way perfume smells: intoxicatingly sweet but dizzying if you inhale too much at once. It’s the kind of music you play when you’re too sadContinue reading
The Art of Flying
When I was little, I used to dream about flying. Each time the dream reoccurred, I would be standing on the roof of my bedroom, hands outstretched, trying to catch the gleaming stars as ifContinue reading
This Loving
I love you. We’ve all heard these words before. We’ve said them before. We’ve given them out like they were candies wrapped in little blue boxes with silver strings, we’ve imagined them into ourContinue reading