Who Gets to Belong?

Both men made me promises. They said it would be better, that there would be bounty. And space, so much space between homes.

El Coyote appears before my shack, silhouette illuminated and clear. He removes his fedora and taps it against the wall, dust and sand in my eyes.

To fight your family’s genetic tendency to become ghosts, you rub makeup on your face so people can see you.

We need new names. / I am that Odum wood / the carpenter saws / for Darling’s bed.

I remember completing the initial draft of my first play, Nothing But The Truth, during the summer of 2013; I was convinced I’d created a masterpiece.

i know i will / before holding your hand / before kissing your cheek / in public / and for all of that i’m so sorry

During my first semester of college, I played what I thought was a “fun icebreaker” — a game I called Guess My Race!

I picked the boy out because his picture looked friendly and his profile said that he only had two weeks left in the States.

Floating on the bubbly foam of her extra hot latte is a wilting tulip pattern that looks like the wounded black bird she saw lying dead by the fountain yesterday.

There’s a certain art of being able to navigate failure in order to reach a point of alignment.

On a family ranch, you have to earn your belonging.

My melanin is not enough to hold my culture.

I grew up in a schism. My father came of age in a Jewish family from Massapequa, New York, and my mother a Baptist family from Dalton, Massachusetts.

In the summer of 2015, I was working in Spain for a theater project with a Spaniard friend of mine.