Cover Photo: Jalis of blue and pink and green,  broken and reconstructed into a new structures
Detail of 'Cosmic Veils' by Sarah Ahmad (2020)/Photograph by Mellisa Lukenbaugh

Inheriting an Autoimmune Disease and an Instinct for Survival

Science provides me with a vocabulary of illness, confirming what my body already knows: that it will never be the same

Time-waster

homoiosstasisHomeostasishome

volatile

allostasis

Maryam Ahmad is a medical student in Pasadena, California. Her essays examine the layers and languages of the body, in illness and in health. She is currently at work on a lyric nonfiction book about her family's intertwined sickness stories. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma when not at school.