“Laughing in the Bushes”
Emerald City Lit Mag, Issue 2, fall 2020
Attending a friend’s wedding on my own, I was determined to have a good time. When a night of unfortunate events lands me in the hospital, I have nothing but my delusions and sense of humor to get me out of it.
“Rape Card”
Runner-up, Creative Nonfiction Contest
BLood Orange review, Issue 11.2
I was in Delhi the night that a brutal gang rape occurred, shocking international media and provoking an outcry from countries around the world, particularly India’s former colonizers. While my friends and family asked me to stay safe, what I witnessed on the streets of Delhi, and in the ensuing aftermath, made me question when and how we choose to challenge rape culture.
“Varanasi” and “Metronomes”
Texas Poetry Calendar 2020
“Varanasi” is a poem that attempts to capture the sense of eerie gravity I felt in the city during a solar eclipse. “Metronomes” is a poem on the certainty and hope in spaces and times between lovers.
“Seedlings in the Bukhara”
The Massachusetts review, issue 59.2
A few months after the 2010 earthquake that leveled Port-au-Prince, I gathered a group of friends and acquaintances to live on a reforestation project in Haiti. We are not the only Americans who arrive in the rural border town, and our stay in Haiti leads us to understand just how deeply flawed “aid” efforts have been—and what might be the only answer for the country to gain true stability.
“Sounds Kept in the Valley of the Tongue,” Second Place, Frank McCourt Memoir Prize
THe southampton review, Vol. xi, no. 2
My upbringing was very different from my father’s, which sometimes means we’re standing across a cultural divide. In an essay that braids my experiences teaching ESL to adults with trying to communicate with my father, I explore coming out to my parents when one of them doesn’t have the same language to discuss sexuality.
This essay was chosen as the Second Place winner in The Southampton Review’s 2017 Frank McCourt Memoir Prize.
“Symmetry”
Meridian, issue 38
In this essay with a mirrored structure, I explore what it means to be in an abusive relationship with a mentally-ill partner, while trying desperately to keep the relationship alive. What does it mean to empathize with someone who lacks empathy themselves? What happens when the reality you’ve created together threatens your own well-being, and how do you hold a mirror to someone without becoming them?