Of Superpowers, Great and Small

  “Me and John went to the store earlier today…” “You mean, ‘John and I went to the store…’” “Thanks again, Correcto-man. You little brat.” I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. A bad habit as a child without much social awareness turned quickly into a nickname, and not in a nice way. I, … [Read More]

Of Art and the Hope of Something More

  Another long, white hall stretches out before me. Four openings mark out the entrances into additional exhibit halls, each containing another small collection – Dutch landscapes on the left, a collection of reformation portraits on the right. But before me, a hall… and a question. Why am I even here? I’ve seen this before, … [Read More]

Of Planning – Of Hoping

  Goals. Strategies. Task Lists. There is something about a full calendar that brings me peace. When dreams turn into goals, I find my sweet spot. A vision is cast, and I get to work. A thousand moving pieces do not scare me. There’s always a plan big enough to catch them all. The further … [Read More]

Of Made Up Words and Windows and Souls

  Opia. Greek, meaning eye. Often used in combination with prefixes to describe various conditions of sight/sightlessness. Internet, meaning gaze: “The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.” Among the thousands of posts and reposts, articles and blogs circulating the internet, there has been a fascination with … [Read More]

Heimweh

  Gasping. It’s like gasping for breath. Deep in your chest, a moment of longing for something, like the feeling right before you run out of air. Pain, maybe. A tinge of sadness. But longing, definitely longing. Homesickness looks different after sixteen months in my new home. It is less born from anxious instability or … [Read More]

A Question of Blindness

  He took him. He took him by the hand. But it wasn’t enough. What were they looking for? What did they expect? These friends that believed so deeply that things could change, that things could get better. They dragged him forward, out of the masses and into the spotlight of specificity. I don’t think … [Read More]

The Fire of our Night

  All was dark. Darker than dark, the sky seemed to even swallow sound in its mass. I stood by the lit up HBO add by my bus stop, waiting for the 5:17 bus to come my way, trying to remember why I was getting up this early. It’s a holiday, right? Don’t you rest … [Read More]

Of Wild Things and Dying Stars

  Divided. Mixed. A contradiction, maybe. A paradox at the least. Deep in my soul lies a question, words unformed. It’s as if only an answer will clarify its edges. Therein lies the writer’s task: to dig in heart’s caverns, to sift out the sediment knowledge and reveal… something. But what is it? What is … [Read More]