I updated my socials: “Not tryna go back and forth with you hoes.” I tagged Robert in the post, then put up a pic of me looking bored and captioned, “Stars were born for stages. Y’all have fun rolling round the gravel lot.”

Action and consequence, scene after scene, my father and I will remember everything from this moment on with the sharpness of an alarm that neither of us will ever be able to turn off again.

On the cold night of November 24, 1997, before Shahid disappeared forever, I thought I was his closest friend, his only confidant.

I’ve always loved salmon. Not to eat, as I don’t eat fish, but I’ve always loved salmon in general because salmon jump and no one knows why.

Each birth is not the creation of a soul but the completion of the transmigration from one body to another. There is no such thing as a new soul.

There is a cairn of shames, towered and teetering on his chest, that the slightest movement could lethally topple.

No one wanted to notice a road, a potato, a banana, a mother. If they didn’t notice it, it meant it was working. 

Maybe it’s surrender to Mary I want, I said. A feminine divine.

I was afraid she’d look at me as if I were a perfect stranger who had nothing to do with her and never would.

He feels like he’ll never desire anything again, except sleep, and to be rid of this smell.