XOXO
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
February 12, 2019
Let me capture
Your likeness forever.
Look at me and
Hide your sad.
Don’t look so ugly and angry.
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
February 12, 2019
Her veil: blush, pearl-spotted.
Lashes: heavy (fake), coming undone.
The pale gap above her eye. Rani, half-past-nineteen.
It is a Tuesday, raining. I wait with her in a much-loved family minivan.
The heat slips down my neck
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
February 11, 2019
I completely suck at self-care. And not in a cutesy, humblebrag way or in a self-deprecating way. We just do not get along. It’s to the point where I hear someone exhort the importance of self-care along with suggestions of meditations or face masks, and I roll my eyes to the back of my skull so hard they may pop out from their sockets. My mom is probably forwarding a Tiny Buddha email to me right now, and I’m already moving it to my trash folder without reading
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
January 28, 2019
“Arab women are a lot like coffee. strong. refreshing. Roasted until nearly burnt and then marketed as bitter. Expected to keep you going when you can’t do it yourself. Mis-used. Under appreciated.” (Yasmeen AlFaraj, University of California, Berkeley @_alfa_ya)
My grandmother wakes up before the sun. A full night of sleep does not diminish, nor does it puncture, perfectly
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
January 26, 2019
Surface Tension
Last night I dreamt we were married, our children sprinkled through the yard
like tulips. I know you don’t believe in people creating other people, but my mother
was so hard on me; I want to make a child to wrap in cashmere, kiss
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
January 25, 2019
I was in the middle of teaching one afternoon when a man died right outside my classroom door.
A scream cut through the air. And then another. And another. I froze. I had just launched into the class’s next composition prompt, when one of my students, Adam, came in the door. He wasn’t usually late to class. His freckles contrasted on his face more than usual
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
January 24, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
January 23, 2019
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
January 22, 2019
1. Portrait of Adolescent America
I find America tucked away
inside the lines of my hand,
searching for a safe-space
in a trench of creases /
Close my fist
Art by Kirsten Hemrich
January 22, 2019
The vaginal dilators I had ordered, per the instructions of my physical therapist, arrived at my apartment in a perfectly normal-looking box, as if they weren’t sold by adamandeve.com, a site that has my eternal gratefulness for coming up as “unspecified merchant” on my bank account statement. I kept them under my bed for two weeks, a reincarnated childhood monster that I waited to go away until I couldn’t stand the guilt of leaving sixty dollars’ worth of a