I’m sorry, I’m broken.That’s the disclaimer I carrylike a fragile-stickered box,shipped express through years of fire. I walk in with cracks showing,the kind you try to hide with duct tapeand a joke timed...

So I’m getting my face cut open— and somehow that’s the good news.* They’re gonna take a sawto this skull I’ve been living in,sand down the man that never fit,and build something closerto the mirror...

She says,“Kneel.”And I do.Not because I must,but because I’ve been waitingfor someone who knows how to ask for melike this.Her voice is the low hum of stormclouds.The warning.The permission.She doesn’t touch me yet.She...

I thought I found my sisternot by blood,but by bond—one of those once-in-a-lifetimeride-or-die“if the world burns, we’ll roast marshmallows together”kind of friendships. She said she loved me.Said I was family.Said she saw me,like really saw me,in...

I’ve always been the new kidin a school that never lets out.Thirty years late to the lunchroomstill clutching a tray of awkward silenceand a carton of “please like me.” I sit alone,not because...