But respect was only skin-deep — I slept for twelve hours last night, something rarer than the steak my white friends are comfortable eating. I even like my tofu well done. I work at least six days a week, and still, I wonder if I slept too long. Work is my bourbon, my lean, my kush…

The most brutal part of sexual violence is its invisibility — I heard the man’s voice through my front door: over the not-so-Christian music; over the slamming of car doors; over the curse words; over the whistling of weary windshield wipers, I heard him. “Please say hello to me.” Wet feet on the carpet, and I heard him. Wrapped in a…

Maybe love just isn’t for me — When the sky smiles upon me and the sun wraps me in its light, I am the hermit crab, in search of a new place to call home. Every shell is filled with promise, every little grain of sand is just a sign that I am that much closer to…

I am living proof of impossible things — I remember looking down at my green socks, the fuzzy kind with little grippy bits on the soles of my feet. I hadn’t come into the emergency room with these socks, but I hadn’t come into the hospital willingly, either. I hated the socks. I hated the police. I hated…

Love always finds a way — I am struggling mightily. It is the kind of struggle that wraps its roots around my emotions, coiling itself around clusters of words and turning them into anxious thoughts. It is the kind of struggle that winds its way through the ocean inside of me, tossing and twisting and turning…

Exploring the color of language — A Mango Shaped Space still occupies its very own nook in my bookcase of childhood memories. Synesthesia, a condition that takes center stage in Wendy Mass’s novel, involves the linkage of sight and sound. It’s been at least a decade since I initially read the book, but the phenomenon of…

My impulse to appease dictates everything…even my dietary choices — Three years ago, Rose*, also known as the best therapist ever, gave me a copy of Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go. “It’s not because you’re codependent,” she insisted, always one step ahead of my overthinking, “but I think it’ll help with your complex PTSD.” It was a purple…

Life when the floor is the ceiling — This is the beginning of the end, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. As I was lying in bed, I felt alone, even more alone than I do on solo nights when I hug myself and go to sleep. …

The only rule is insanity — According to 23 and Me, I should know how to play chess. Of course, that’s not what the app actually said, but I am, in fact, Indian, and Indians are supposed to be able to play chess. That’s one stereotype. The best I can do is checkers. What a shame. …