All Stories

What the Women Do

Patrick was telling a story: ‘When they was coming to put us off, the first time, they sent along this kid. We knew we was good cause we was on a private ro...

Old Man Gogol

My brother has a new plan: hurl piss at Old Man Gogol’s face. Today. First my brother will piss into an empty Gatorade bottle, then he will ring Gogol’s doorbe...

VOX POPULI, VOX DEI

—an exaltation of Igbos People do not know what to make of me. My eyes bagging the baggage of my lives know that my nose flows from those of my kith and...

“…for a Black girl”

1. No-lye Perm Relaxer (decades worth. enough for permanent damage) The two-hour-long process will burn your scalp, singe your ears, and cause your hair to fal...

Because Love Was a Piñata

It’s Valentine’s Day. My desk holds various gifts waiting to be given, a bouquet with a peacock feather wrapped in a plastic package and heart-shaped box of ch...

On Returning to Appalachia

Southern pride, pride in southern toughness or roughness, is not something I know, not really, though I grew up here and I ran away from here when I was a teen...

Hiding from Mary

I’d seen her for months in my Oakland hills neighborhood. In her ill-fitting reflective safety vest near Safeway where I bought the Lunchables my two children ...

Running

tonight, they are silhouetted against disco lights. silences of cosmic proportions lay between them. up above, stars: white flames enclosed in a fantasy glassh...

A Sister’s Guide to Grief

Of course there is a right way to grieve. That is to carry your solemn soul tucked deep inside, to smile when smiling is called for, to keep the tears unspille...