Endpaper
Love in Spoonfuls
Caring for myself at Harvard is more difficult than I like to admit. I question how I can stem from generations of nourishing women as someone who can barely replenish myself.
Paper Boats
The ground is forgetful — after a few dry months, it’s flustered by the torrent of rain and can’t hold onto the precious moisture.
Planting a Seed
It seems unfair to say I love someone who I never knew completely. It’s hard to understand how it could even be possible. I have no evidence, no explicit reason why I should love him aside from the blood we share and his undeniable part in giving me life. Yet, I do love my dad and I miss the chance I had at being his daughter, blooming in his image.
Big-City Blues
When I see New York again, we’ll reacquaint ourselves. I’ll tell the corners that used to know my secrets a few new ones. And then we’ll say goodbye, and I’ll be on a train north — missing home, but glad, for now, that I left.
Acceleration
I am afraid to carry the weight of other bodies, of other lives, with unflinching speed.
Stripping on Sundays
At the beginning of my sophomore year, I was on the phone with my grandmother when she asked me if I’d gotten a term-time job. “Yes,” I answered her. “I’m stripping at CRG.”
On Bearing Witness
When faced with uncomfortable displays of grief or jealousy-inducing accomplishments, bearing witness is the bravest act of love.
How Not to Be a Big Sister
Looking back, I realized that because I had tried to be the perfect long-distance sibling, I had turned myself into someone unrelatable and distant. I thought that because they looked up to me, I should only show the parts of myself that were worth admiring. Instead, I wondered if the best thing I could do for them was to be totally honest.
