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Stories Poems Essays

Arrival

I stumble out of the matatu taxi, struggle to hoist up my weighty backpack, and am immediately confronted by several people standing nearby under the leafy canopy of a large thorny acacia tree.

Children of the Border

Arziki said, “I laid down in the desert with the dead bodies. I played dead so the men would leave me alone. It is not easy for me to do,” she said, smiling ear to ear.

Words

“Words were minced into morsels that she could spit across the room like outrageous profanities.”

Dichotomy of a Dad

“She is the daughter who heard the news. Whose eyes began to well, but after eighteen years is all out of tears”

Divided By One

“No one told us what we should do while doctors opened his ribcage and stopped his heart.”

Maiden Dance

“One night is all it took, two people fall in a flash, one instant freezes the moment”

Irish Exit

“For in that version, he had spared me a distant handshake. Spared me a goodbye. Left me the wide universe.”

The Roach

“I stare at the cockroach and am sure that it is my father. It’s got the same shifty eyes that he has – well, had.”