Words I Love
The bones in my back curled into a question mark as I sought answers I didn’t have.
The Fragility of Time, 2024
I surprised myself when I told him I loved him, but the words didn’t slip out. They were in my throat, waiting for my lips to part.
The First Man I Bought Flowers For, 2025
Our story started the way all the best ones do — I was drunk and don’t remember meeting him. It was probably the middle of the week, my new friends and I were temporarily unemployed at the time, and we lay in a park on top of makeshift picnic blankets tending to more wine than bread and cheese. We had all met a few days ago at our teaching program’s orientation. Our circle widened as more incoming teachers joined us on the grass. The sky swallowed the sun as I sat next to a young man with pretty eyelashes.
The First Man I Bought Flowers For, 2025
I will never stop being the teacher who refers to her students as “my kids.” I love them so fiercely it hurts but I choose hurting if it means I can also see their eyes shine when things start to make sense.
No Longer a Prisoner of my Nostalgia, 2025
If you’re in the casual scene, you probably won’t be scared to show a little skin. Don’t be afraid to show a little heart, either. It’s okay to lend a little part of yourself, even for a moment, even if you’re scared of how it’ll be touched, even if it’s to prove to yourself that you can. Sharing yourself doesn’t mean giving your whole self away. And if they return your softness a little bruised, thank them for the chance anyway. Vulnerability is the tuition I pay to grow stronger the skin and more secure the heart.
Everything I’ve Learned from Casual Dating at 22, 2024
You call it braless; I call it brafree.
Taking off my Bra, 2024
My fellow students, I urge you to choose temporary suffering. Spend hours deciding how to phrase a single sentence. Mull over essay prompts, letting them flip and turn in your head for days. Study a carefully-curated sentence, picking apart its words and putting them back together like a child learning to use its hands. Contemplate structure, relish rhythm. Feel tone. Most importantly, make miksates. It might take days, it will probably take years, but conveying your thoughts independently of ChatGPT will drive you to write in a way that is authentically you. To do so, you must start from the most original place there is: yourself.
Lessons about ChatGPT from a Failed 7th-Grade Science Fair Project, 2023
I declared my love for my plants, a warm shower after a long day, my new necklace, for the classes I was taking, the people I was meeting, the short distance between my apartment and the nearest cookie shop, for peace and quiet, but especially after chaos, for friends who stayed, even those who left, for relatives thousands of miles away on different land, family I realized I was lucky to still have alive, for my tear-licking dog who inspired salty smiles, for this life, for right now, being present in a world where everything felt like it was slipping away, but which made the things I still had that much more noticed and appreciated, that much more loved.
A Lovely Awakening During an Infectious Time, 2022
I found myself with more space than I knew what to do with. So, I grew into it.
The Fragility of Time, 2024
Some women rationalize my brafreeness as lazy ignorance. But I have studied their judgment under harsh lighting, and they stare at their own reflection in my eyes. To some women, I’m playpretending prostitute, hoping to flaunt and deceptively capture the attention of her, her competitors, or worse, the men we compete for. A woman’s sexuality amplifies when her bust does, and although mine seems smaller without a bra, she reddens at my perceived threat. Is it me she fears or herself?
Patriarchy seeps into the world’s every fabric, including the one women wear on their chests.
Taking off my Bra, 2024
Give us blood, give us mess, and give us a spotlight. Instead of highlighting symptom-free models, give way to the bloated, tired, cramping menstruators. Instead of ignoring our messy realities, create products that carry us in all our red glory.
Undies for All? THINX Again, 2023
After almost two years of the coronavirus, I know that vulnerability is a strength, and it breeds love — love that need be embraced, celebrated, and gifted. And while the art of it all doesn’t allow me to forget the dying planet on our hands, it encourages me to revive what I can salvage and love it to the end of the world.
A Lovely Awakening During an Infectious Time, 2022