“our shared cultural vocabulary in relation to the body and human expression”

“the ghosts in our empty driver’s seats—and the humiliation”

“It is the exact date that gauzy childhood ended and life sped up…”

This is Detroit.

“Stop competing with other women, and start holding them up”

“Give me enough time
& I’ll anvil your kidneys, lose your memory for you.”

“but the dead have always served as cautions to the living”

“In middle school, I tried to have an eating disorder.”

“the smell of leather jackets, sweat, and clove cigarettes.”

“People from Scotland are the nicest.”

“People who like labels have one for me: “adoptive mom,””

“…its underlying biology that informs my experience of my brain.”

A journey through the Indonesian archipelago.

“I remember all those nights she snuck into my room to prune back my eyelashes”

The world of queers, tomboys, and crossdressers.

“smoking weed by a old knotted tree because you said it would be fine”

“I don’t want her buried, I want her burnt. But I don’t want her ashes.”

Come to understand this world.

“An urn of salt mixed with bright ash. Someone knocks inside me –”

"...culturally it's more difficult for artists of color."