rusted signs say: there are dangerous animals! please don’t near. what animals? a far-off building, birds squawk for thawing. a weary panda pushes his head against a tree and we cheer. not far from here, erasure, erasure, forgotten hutong, abandoned malls. the...
Photo: Christian Bolz via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 4.0 I am the ultimate pivoter: my crumbling castle turned wedding studio Come pay to watch me fall apart Once deserted, I am now a nostalgic photoshoot backdrop Trees grow in my carousel but not my walkway...
Photo by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Travelogue 1: A tropical girl’s month in Scotland (and England) It’s summertime, they said. / Damn, it was cold. / I tried tomato soup— / blargh, never again. // I needed to smoke. // My cousin...
Photo: Aruni Nayak, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Look how the lake licks the boaton the edges. The soft meanderof a candy in a toothless mouth.A host of white-bellied sea eagles tease the lake and touch her face—half-flying, half-floating—suspended between water...
Photo by kashishArtandGallery / shutterstock For as long as I can remember, my mother had wanted to mother a son. She dressed me in blue every chance she got. Even before I was expected, she bought baby boy clothes off thelas around Tariq Road and Hyderi. She could...
I arrived in Antakya with my partner during Türkiye’s kurban bayramı, a week in the thick of summer that everyone takes off to celebrate Eid al-Adha. The city was sleepy and quiet, with heat rising up from the cobblestone streets. After a twelve-hour night bus from...
