It started with a Facebook message between two bubbly freshmen-to-be: two California-born Indian girls bonding over Bollywood and books. One message led to another, and we decided to submit a roommate request form to live together in the dorms. It was our first time living away from the home-cooked food of our Indian families. Our shared heritage was what gave us a pocket of familiarity within unfamiliarity.
Creative Writing
Ellos Quieren Sangre
Her shoulders drooped with the weight of her Catholic guilt as the statue of white Jesus stared down at her, telling her, I know what you’ve done. His dark eyes seemed to be in perpetual melancholy as her own peered into them. That statue always scared her, always seemed to follow her home from church; it was the first thing she’d see in her grandmother’s kitchen, a miniature version of the statue hung up in her room right in front of the doorway. She had always accepted that Jesus would be a permanent part of her life, just as she had accepted that she bore responsibilities, as the eldest daughter and the first grandchild, to fall in line with what her family expected from her..
Anonymous, Anonymous
I have this dream of dying in complete silence, and when the neighbors call to complain about the smell a few days later (and the firemen kick the door in), they’ll find my mother sitting calmly at the dining room table, knife in hand around a halo of sunburnt faces cutting branches from the family tree
Butterflies
A poem recounting a personal experience with queerness and trauma and coming to terms with it.
To Cis Queers Everywhere
A call to action for cisgender queer people in the fight for trans rights.
Straight Women Rules: A Guide to Being the Perfect Lesbian®
There’s a lot of wondering and a lot of waiting. I understand what you might be feeling. I know that you’re biting your tongue, and always waiting till you make them uncomfortable.
Sage Green Love Song
Give me something to leave behind
A sour candy kiss in the theater
Worse things have made me lose my mind.