I write about my personal struggles because I don’t want to talk about them. — It happened during a professional discussion about possible collaboration. “Yeah, I read your work and I read your blog” It happened at school pick up. “Yeah, even behind your mask I know what you look like because I googled you and read your blog” It happened during coffee with a…

Let’s hope I don’t lose them again — One day I lost my words. I woke up that day, and every day since, the words weren’t there. Instead, a jackhammer attempted to break through my skull, loud, internally rattling, my brain violently slamming around, forcefully hitting the sides of my skull in quick, violent, and unpredictable patterns that…

Too Sick to Manage, Too Well for Help — It starts as moments of feeling deep despair. Tears threaten to fall at any moment. I turn off my camera in these days of personal interactions over Zoom, leaving my interlocutor unsure and troubled about my behavior. I lie, say that I need to blow my nose or do something…

In Anticipation of My “Forget These Kids” Weekend I am a bad mother. I curse around my kids. I don’t force them to eat vegetables. I encourage showers, but if they don’t stink, I don’t care. I told them we would get a dog and they could pick it out…

My yoga is better now that I’m not skinny — I have to move my belly out of the way, or else I can’t get my fingers under my feet. My thighs give out and I land on my butt trying to do a toe stand. No longer able to rotate my hip joint to place my foot on top…

I’m working on me but I still have to do my day job. — [Note to the reader. TW: mental health and suggestions of self-harm] Words matter. For my little family of five, words house us, feed us, and entertain us. I get paid to talk and write. During the academic year, I must craft almost four hours of spoken word a week; these…

But want and need are two different things. And I need this. — As I write this, tears are on the verge of spilling over already puffy eyes. The clench in my stomach and pain in my back are making it hard to think. I’m trying to do busy work — formatting a paper, researching for an infographic, writing this — to distract…

Not because they were Asian. Not because they were women. But because they were Asian women, undivided and intersectional. — I hadn’t done anything to him. All I did was step off the curb. “Get out of the street you Black bitch!,” as he raised his White middle finger. My face flushed and I looked around to see who noticed this moment of public humiliation. No other Black women were around, but the Black men and…

Hunger is an inescapable aspect of my Black womanhood — ~ Nikki Giovanni, “Adulthood II” (from Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, 1978) There is always something / of the child / in us that wants / a strong hand to hold / through the hungry season / of growing up My heart is a lonely heart. It reflects the…