87 Weeks Ago: The Night Mykki Blanco Made a Small Girl Feel Big
“I pushed and shoved and laughed and danced in big black shoes that would later bruise my feet, next to a girl who would later love me back.”
A Proposal
“It is a matter of national survival that we never get used to the president’s hair.”
Feelings Rookie: Letting Anger Light My Fuse
I like to think I can control my anger, but I usually end up burning my own life down instead.
Shoulder Pads and Short Cuts: How Grace Jones Made Me Powerful
A love letter to the only woman that stole my heart and snatched my scalp at the same damn time.
How Whitney Houston Taught Me the Greatest Love of All For My Queer Black Self
My journey to self-love through the influence of Whitney Houston’s life and music.
Feelings Rookie: A Tribute to Love
When the world feels dark, we have to find the light where we can and hold onto it. This is a story about a bright, shining spot of goodness: My Granny.
Feelings Rookie: Uphill Battles
When waking up every morning feels like starting another steep climb, how do we keep our wits about us long enough to reach the top and breathe?
I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School, Awaiting Someone Like Mike Pence as a Messiah
To take back the country for Christ, we needed to outbreed, outvote and outactivate the other side, thus saith The Lord.
Why I’m Unapologetic About My Sensuality as a Black Trans Woman
“For me, as a Black Trans Woman, to find her body not only as something worthy and magnificent (as it is), but to find someone to share that magick with, may very well be one of the only moments she has to enjoy a trying and very taxing life — one that’s always trying to kill her.”
When Community Complicates Healthcare for Sex Workers
“It became a running joke between my partners and I, that I was both too stigmatized and too famous to get my needs met.”
Why I’ve Decided to Let Myself Get Angry (Despite What Ableism Taught Me)
“I’m a Nice Person — I have one of those irrepressibly pleasant faces that makes people want to sit next to me on public transportation — but I can be nice and angry, I can be smart and angry, and I can be worth listening to and angry.”
Feelings Rookie: The Spiral
How can one negative feeling send a whole day into disarray? Why do feelings like worthlessness seem to snowball? How do I stop this?
Feelings Rookie: When It All Adds Up
Feelings about feelings: How do they work and why are they so awful?
Cleaning As Self-Care: Powering Through Your Post-Election Grief By Organizing Your Life
Knowing I could take on a task and see it through, start to finish, reminds me that the same is true for my writing and my activism, too. I will literally start 2017 with my house in order — and the work I’ll do from there will be much better for it.
Trump Won, So I Finally Got Out of Bed
When the election results came in, it had already been a month since I gave up on trying to fix my own mental health issues. And so it turned out that the worst day of our generation collided with my own personal low.
Feelings Rookie: The Terror of Hope
Hope is light, hope is all that is good, hope is what keeps humans alive when all other circumstances say they should be dead. So why was I so afraid of this life-giving feeling?
I Am Excited About My Future And This President Won’t Change That: A List
I’m excited about my future. I’m a little nervous also, but I’m more excited than nervous, because just as the seasons change, our president will as well.
Feelings Rookie: A Canyon of Grief
My problem with grief is its general shape. Grief is somehow both slippery and sharp, rolling over you with sadness then sneakily attacking your soft underbelly with its claws.
An Introvert Goes Canvassing For Hillary Clinton
Maybe I’m not the best candidate to talk politics with strangers. But I couldn’t shake the feeling — the knowledge, really — that I’d copped out. Bailing on our first female President, of all people, because you’re scared? Nah, girl. I called the guy back, told him I could make it after all, held myself accountable on social media, and freaked out for ten minutes. But it was on. I was going.
Spooked Ya: The Time I Met The Ghost Of The ‘Girl On Fire’
What followed was absolute chaos. Pure, unadulterated terror. Those haunted house reaction pictures at the moment of surprise come to life. Girls were shoving each other out of the way but where we were running was unclear. Off the earth? Possibly.