Floating on the bubbly foam of her extra hot latte is a wilting tulip pattern that looks like the wounded black bird she saw lying dead by the fountain yesterday.

I picked the boy out because his picture looked friendly and his profile said that he only had two weeks left in the States.

During my first semester of college, I played what I thought was a “fun icebreaker” — a game I called Guess My Race!

i know i will / before holding your hand / before kissing your cheek / in public / and for all of that i’m so sorry

I remember completing the initial draft of my first play, Nothing But The Truth, during the summer of 2013; I was convinced I’d created a masterpiece.

We need new names. / I am that Odum wood / the carpenter saws / for Darling’s bed.

To fight your family’s genetic tendency to become ghosts, you rub makeup on your face so people can see you.

El Coyote appears before my shack, silhouette illuminated and clear. He removes his fedora and taps it against the wall, dust and sand in my eyes.

Who gets to belong? Who gets to decide? Why belong? What is worth belonging to?

Both men made me promises. They said it would be better, that there would be bounty. And space, so much space between homes.

I knew a lot had changed in my part of town since I left because cafes had cropped up all over the place, like small checker pieces from other boards migrating over to ours.

I had finally begun to build a home of my own. Unsettled and confused after college, I moved to Monterey, a coastal town in California, where I was amongst friends and working as a preschool teacher.

Several years ago, while writing a philosophy dissertation about moral saints and drinking ungodly quantities of coffee at night, I came across two real-life stories that ended up having a profound effect on me.

I am gripping my chest as my colleague attempts to reassure me. “The paramedics will be here soon,” she says.

My Mum kissed my Dad in the back of that mosque / When it was still the Gaumont —