Everyone knows who Superman and Batman are. You didn't need to hang around in a dimly-lit comic book store to know the cultural importance of someone who does the right thing, when it mattered most. But there's a piece missing—what do you do when those icons don't look like you?
Read MoreI didn’t want another long-distance relationship.
Years of moving between Ireland and America meant that I had too many under my belt already, and the last one had destroyed me. I spent all my money flying back and forth from Dublin to San Francisco for a man who said he loved me. He was married and I didn’t know. He had another girlfriend and I didn’t know. He started abusing me and no one knew. I wasn’t in one place long enough to see him clearly, or for anyone else to see me clearly, to see how I was slowly disintegrating.
Read MoreImani watched Jin’s shoulders tense up the way they did when he was cut from the squash team, and she could tell he was internally consulting the bylaws for the right course of action. Feeling the nervous heat of him standing next to her, she said, “We’ll switch off. I’ll take the couch tonight.”
Read MoreForbidden fruit. I was raised Catholic. Listening to this song was blasphemy. It all sounded so far from the crooning Spanish love songs my parents played (that I usually rolled my eyes at) or the rancheras that blasted from the radio (which I disliked, because I knew it meant my dad was drinking).
Read MoreFrom 2003-2014, I worked part-time as a janitor at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in the Sonoran Desert. I mopped the floors, took out the trash, changed light bulbs, did some light groundskeeping, and emptied out the holding cells. My job was to throw out what had been confiscated from people who were detained—toothbrushes, soap, water bottles, rosaries, shoes, blankets, jackets, birth control pills, children’s clothing, even yellow rubber duckies—items the Border Patrol agents deemed ‘non-essential’ or ‘potentially lethal.’ I was directed to throw everything into the dumpsters.
Read Morei don’t know how to not be prey
waiting in the tall grass or
in the shadow
i’ve learned not to breathe
when i hear their voices
i’ve learned to look like
a mounted creature behind museum glass my head askew making them think yes this is the
way she looks in her natural habitat
