On Sobriety: The Evolution of a Drug Addict

This essay is about narcotics and other lifesaving therapies. I dated a functioning cocaine addict once and we almost got married. Al. That was his real name and I’m remembering it now because it is tattooed on my bicep and seven years removed from the relationship, I still don’t regret doing it.

DEREK AND GEORGE: WHAT LIES BENEATH

When you dig deep, you’ll find that both victim and perpetrator were fighting silent battles When I was 22, I spent a night in jail for credit card fraud. I was a mother to six-month-old twins, unwed, and an undergrad in college. My former partner and the father of my children had not paid […]

Just Human: Black stories are most rewarded when they center blackness — which, in a certain sense, is to center whiteness

It is a cool autumn morning and I am perched on my couch, a coffee cup nearby, a few pages into Claudia Rankine’s newest book, Just Us: An American Conversation. My 14-year-old son saunters in and asks what I am reading when I look up over the brim to tell him: “It’s a book on race by […]

The Mystery of Iniquity: Lies in the Time of Corona

The mysterious thing about beginnings is that they sometimes hide themselves, not revealing what they are until years or decades later when you can look back and see them for what they really are.