Poets are not supposed to be jaded. Poets are supposed to feel everything, at once, all the time, and like it. By this measure, before I called myself a poet, I was one; my threshold as an emotional sponge is the stuff of legend. But since I became a poet…

I sleep with the windows open. I welcome the night air as it fills my bedroom, and on the mornings I am lucky enough to rise early, I get to hear my city come to life. On the mornings I am not so lucky, my alarm clock is the rattling…

When I first moved to Brooklyn, I barely registered that my home was near a park. See, this park was more concrete than green, and most of that green was turf. This park was long and narrow, and flanked by tall municipal buildings that just look like they’re about to…

I hold in my hands a mirror. I hold it up to you, but you wince and look away. Or, you find, with lightning speed, the needle in the haystack that won’t stop pricking you, and calling you ugly, fat, unworthy. …

The boys thought they knew what she meant: “I’ve been a bad, bad girl.” The boys only wanted to watch the music video — knee high socks, cotton briefs, heroin chic. They thought it was about sex. At thirteen, I saw it was about loneliness. The only girl in the…

There is a gulf between my head, heart, and body that it is not possible to close — This piece was first performed on September 16, 2021 at Parkside Lounge in New York City. It is dedicated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, five members of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the 87th Legislature of the state of Texas. My body wants to bear…

There’s no firm protocol for handling a relationship with a wayward parent. I’ve often wished there was, that in certain situations I could have looked at some flowchart optimized for a healthy father-daughter relationship — or at least peaceful coexistence — that would tell me what to do. I could…

Let’s talk about mania, people! I was in it not too long ago. Someone once described my writing as “uncommonly honest,” so here we go, folks, an uncommonly honest conversation about my bipolar disorder. Until January, I hadn’t had an episode in nearly ten (ten!) years. This was a big…