he presses a two-minute-old cigarette to the nape of my neck to re- mind me he thinks that i am at his fingertips. sometimes i snicker at the ideology that i am any one’s for the keeping. i see him in passing and i do not act less passive. the…

i grew up in the city and the suburbs, which exposed me to experiences unlike and dissimilar to mine. but one truth across the board is that adults seem to like to hoard the tenacity for a lack of propensity pertaining to common decency. i do not have the capacity …

i soar high like a kite and i beg the night to tell me how to rekindle my own light. the concept of thinking i’m more than alright renders me affright — which is to say self-love is an unfamiliar site i register as an unsafe plight. how do i…

i remember how daunting the decision of a major back in my collegiate years felt. you’re asked to decide overnight and sign on the dot, committing to a concept when you don’t even know all that you encompass yet. i had a dream where diplomas looked like nothing more than…

they tell me to slow down and i speed up in defiance. the language of languid is not one i can learn, as that would require i leave who i am in favor of lovers and i don’t do that anymore. i hear that protecting your peace involves pausing your…

i dream of fawns prancing in peony fields, like bambi in the dense aura of evergreen trees. when the sunlight focuses on the shrubbery on the outskirts of my favorite town, dew evaporates and so do my worries.