Outside the wide kitchen window, the silhouette of Mount Fuji grew hazy in the dusk. When I declared, “Ieyasu is my favorite,” the pride in Papa’s smile was palpable through his thick, silvery beard.
My Ancestors Weren’t Eliot’s
we
are born
etched in names no one speaks,
their silence riding
the currents of our voice.
sacred bodies
how many times can someone cry out for God in a night?
Camp (It’s a Mitzvah!)
It is 1982. I just turned 14 last month. It is the summer before 10th grade. I am at a sleepaway camp in the Catskills. I am staying in what used to be a hotel that the camp randomly assigns to campers. It’s not fancy, but it’s better than the cabins. It’s really cool because I am with a group of girls from Long Island. It’s like they are a gang of Rizzos from Grease.
A Conversation with Ted Kerr
Through his life’s work as a social justice organizer and archivist, New School professor and alum Ted Kerr encourages us to think in multiple timelines and ever-expansive networks of memory, particularly as it relates to the world of HIV/AIDS.
Letter from the Editor, 2023-24
The phrase “particularly in these times” stands out to me.
In Color
Boxes in the trunk of the Toyota Corolla Azure her mother sold when they got to the city. Their neighbor played “Purple Rain” every morning. Blue stripes on the city bus. Blue Man Group in Union Square. Public school, plastic chairs. First test. “Sorry kid,” when Natasha’s teacher handed her a blue pen.
My Little Titties Saved My Life
I love referring to my surgery as a boob job because it makes people do a double-take. I see them recalibrate, “What kind of gay are you? Where are you coming from and where are you going?”
Seule
Ms. Zeller told us, “if you scrunch all your fingers and toes and hold it for about ten seconds and then release, that’s kind of what an orgasm feels like.” Glancing down I saw twenty pairs of feet, all wearing the same green knee high socks and black shoes, lift slightly off the floor as we all clenched our toes.
Down South
Driving gingerly driving motherly.
Hope for Rain
It is summer and all my friends are dying.
Pixelated
I was 15 in North Myrtle Beach,
skateboarding towards 420 World
under the stale haze of old billboards and tattered confederate flags. Big Mike worked there,
and it’s where the porn was.
Figures
When a people are made into numbers, by nature, they become divisible. By design, subtractable.
ACAB
click to enlarge This pastel and watercolor work was created in response to the death of George Floyd followed by Black Lives Matter strikes and looting in New York City at the time.
twenty-two
Because in the dim parking lot
one man’s sobriety was a flower for his truths;
because Max’s hair in the rain.
Troubled Sleep Interview
There are people who talk about the Internet or reading PDFs, but the thing is, those people are all wrong. That’s the great truth of it; no matter what happens with smartphones, or streaming TV, or people ordering books off of Amazon, I think the written word is here to stay. People will always like to read physical books. For anyone who is thinking about a career in writing, there will always be demand for that and there will always be opportunities for that.
Frijoles Negros al Indios
But you cannot pick around home. Maybe your home, but not my home. I can throw the doors wide–and often do so with open arms–but to refuse a beam–whether it be a corpulent bird or a hi hat trill–is to cripple such a font to its foundation. For it comes from the depths of my soul, indivisible and not mine, but inherited slowly over time with no recipe to speak of, only a dance rediscovered over and over with folkish steps, a memory recognized when lived out with abandon. I cannot choose what bubbles up from this stew.
Circles and Rectangles
I feel like Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when he is struck by the Seurat painting, except there’s no John Hughes movie soundtrack in the back, and I fail to fall into the painting the way Cameron does. The pressure to discern meaning increases when other people are nearby. I’m afraid that they see something I can’t.
Let the Clouds Cry
Dream about the heart-shaped leaves
on the thin branches of the purple tree.
You know the one.
Where the butterflies
sleep amongst the flowers,
Blessed by the tears of the clouds.