Dec 02, 2020
Choose Your Quarantine House (I – IV)
under the dark sitting pretty / on the patch of hardwood floor / where confession / and callousness meet
under the dark sitting pretty / on the patch of hardwood floor / where confession / and callousness meet
The water flows through hollow bones and returns / as a song. It sounds familiar in the beginning / Then always changes.
The people behind bars are captives of war / The people stolen into camps and cages / speak it plain
some days my own womb shivers at the thought of / my black ass children being thrown / against any wall
the ones you call those frickin’ Ayrabs, the ones / who hold hands with / kiss cheeks with those they call / habibi & isn’t every habibi is a mis/-translation of? habibi
“Every interaction between adult siblings presents a chance to get more clarity about the past. Hopefully, we’re able to seize at least some of these chances.”
“I wrote much of the story listening to jazz, including the title song, for inspiration on how to shift without imposing too much of a structure.”
I claw / against the syrup to love other men / for whom, bless them, a bird is just / a bird.
“I wanted to portray the pain of trying to reach someone who is inside their own, unreachable pain, and how this often puts untenable pressure on relationships.”
turn me into a place like home to you. / Say my name like the stars and / Let’s go out tonight.
“I think so much art—especially cinema—acts as an instruction manual for women.”
“It’s hard to keep the imposter syndrome at bay.”
“Some studies have actually found that a cat's purring can help mend broken bones.”
“Since March, how many have had to grow up fast and be valorous because of amoral, wicked, and cowardly leadership?”
I wish for sex out / in the open, to have / some strange body / glide over mine, to collide / as if to butterfly / underwater required not one / but two sets of salty / chests & jutting / calves
“I cling to art, sometimes as my only saving grace.”
“Interracial love has been codified and digitized, and we’ve found that it sells less ads, is less addictive, than its alternative.”
“I decided to subvert readers’ expectations in terms of the narrative of a diaspora visiting their homeland in order to challenge the myth that all those arriving home from the west are endowed with bags of cash.”
So many of the stories I liked best played with understatement and a sort of quiet, confident pacing.
