All the men in my life have problems that seem easy to fix, but none of them ever seem to fix them. I find it hard to empathize —at times. “I wish we only had to see each other once a week,” Paul says. He’s complaining about his girlfriend. “Three times a week is...

my spine is curved & looking down on the earth.the other day, a stranger raised my chin up with her  finger, asked the name of my loneliness, & walked meto the end of the road, my hand in hers. before i was  born, i must have wished, with all of mygoodness,...

Days that walk in slippers andbrush baby hairdid not hear fatherstell other tall men I madea mistake withcigarette interruptions her lilac dress suit and purse clickwelcome asphalt and kindergartenwith puppets inherited over hands ofchildren who hadn’t heard I am here...

I was six years old when I got an insulin pump. My body was so small that we used a pink dog collar to secure the pump to my waist. I remember how heavy the piece of machinery felt hanging from the collar. I did a show-and-tell in my kindergarten class, even though I...

Hours before the New Year, a blackout fell upon the neighborhood. Electricity outages, of course, are expected in Karachi. With the ongoing gas shortage, electricity was even more coveted. If “the light” went, so would the electric stovetop, the fan, the air...

Us,romping in the uncut grasseswe gathered across decades.Us, our hands, squeezingthe desperate pigments from four soured walls.Us, singing with daytime vigorand doubts all heaven-bound. Us,and these word-taught lung whispers propping up the big ladder,watching the...

On my knees in front of him, I try to picture him as an altar. I don’t pray, and I also don’t particularly believe in god, so the image shifts—more than I would like it to. Eventually, everything settles into one thought, one feeling, one penetrating pinprick...

    My house is furnished with jars of tar and spit they don’t belong to me but take up the empty spaces Leave the TV on after dinner to drown the stillness with canned laughter or politicians on the evening news if the volume is loud enough, then you can...