Nonfiction

My favorite comfort item is a doll my aunt gave me. I named her Didi; I don't really know why, but that's been her name for just about as long as I can remember. 

• Being a girl is being afraid to like the color pink, because you don’t want people to think you’re a girly-girl. You're not.

I had never been the type for Teddy Bears since I was little. And yet, one of my favorite stuffed animals was a toy Bear, and it changed things for me.

She has just showered, and her hair hangs limp down her back, washed of the shampoo she waited five minutes, forehead against the cool tile wall, to rinse off. The sky is ink and charcoal, but then, it has been for hours.

My name is Giovani. I remember the filling of the snow falling from the sky. I come from Brazil, a country that has summer there every day for 365 days, the only place that snows is on the very south and that is not every time  that happens.

How do I know that this will ever be enough? I can’t picture myself settling.

Is it okay that I wish for my grandmother to die? 

I had this dream the other night that some object in outer space had been reflecting radiation onto certain people: just dissolving them painlessly into light.

Through the knotweed. Down the ladder made of tree roots. Up onto the big rock. By the river. I stand, mud on my ankle and cuts on my knees. The sun sits just barely above the trees as the sweat sits just above my brow.

I saw a post on Pinterest today about how they want people to love the mundane things about them, and I crave that from deep in some cavernous region in my heart.

I like auditioning. I like it because it makes me feel special - I like the anticipation, walking in that room, and just getting to play what you've practiced. It's predictable. 

I was in love with him once. I think.