Archive for January 2026
What Do Black Trans Stories Teach Us About Domestic Violence?
In an effort to understand trans people’s relationship to violence, it is important to engage in scholarship created in our voices—by us, for us. Two books I deem vital in fostering this understanding are Redefining Realness and My Life is No Accident. Both memoirs include themes of community, advocacy and justice while highlighting the impacts…
Read MoreThe Unsafe Zone
Dian Septi Trisnanti An Unusual Encounter It was an unusual night, footsteps echoing at every bus stop. We were strangers with our own stories, sharing the same route daily yet knowing nothing of one another. We faced dawn together, battled daily tasks, and disappeared into the anonymity of the city. Perhaps we…
Read MoreNow I Know Better
Anonymous He was a smooth talker—coated everything he said in sugar and fed it to my brain for ten months. He would get me any books I wanted to read, any clothes I wanted to wear, and any number of lattes that I needed to function in college. On my 19th birthday, he…
Read MoreWeeds
Rose The day I met him was the day I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I left the doctor’s office after providing blood samples, and they handed me the diagnosis on a post-it note. It was so impersonal. I walked through the hallway and out to my car without knowing how much…
Read MoreWhen Your Soul Speaks
Marissa Quintero 1. The Violin Grandpa would be so proud, she used to tell me, and I wanted to carry his legacy with me. I’d be dropped off and try to place my fingers properly. I’d make sure my nails were trimmed; I didn’t like to be scolded by him. He slowly found his…
Read MoreIf he’s good
Erin Redfern he just has to choose the right time for the right words. If he’s quick, he’ll nip your first ‘no’ in the bud, then keep pruning, those loppers snick-snicking You don’t know how to love. If he’s good, just a fancy dinner you can’t afford, the care of his daughter, the…
Read MoreInhale, Exhale
Brandi Shaffer You slide the green, plastic M&M’s minis container from under its hiding place beneath your mattress and use your thumb to open the lid. It makes a popping noise that you’ve come to enjoy, to anticipate. You stick two fingers inside the tube and slide a Benson and Hedges menthol cigarette out of…
Read MoreHow to Stay
Christi Siebels Did you ever move to a different place in the same world and pretend it was a new one? /// I remind myself I don’t have to prepare for the past. I say it over and over but he shifts his weight just a little, just enough—and I twist my…
Read MoreThe Wound
SH Materials: Acrylic paint on canvas. Author’s Note Expand The quote that inspired this piece was from the Sufi poet Rumi. This is the full quote: “I said: what about my eyes? He said: Keep them on the road. I said: What about my passion? He said: Keep it burning. I said: What…
Read Morea series of erasures
alec chaya i. It’s a funny thing, time. A common thing, made uncommon by design, by greed, by fear. When I left my ex for the last time, like many others, I grieved the time that that relationship had consumed. “a series of erasures” is rooted in rededicating time, space, and art for myself. ii.…
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