I spent four years in college fiction workshops being told — gently, academically — that the things I cared about were not “serious.”

When I moved to New York alone, I thought the loneliness would be temporary. A tax. A rite of passage. Something you endure quietly before the city lets you in.

I remember the day my sister was born. Her hands were impossibly small, the kind of small that makes you hold your breath without meaning to. Her nose looked like mine — a detail I didn’t expect to matter but somehow did.

Every culture has a story about a rabbit that leads you somewhere you can’t return from.

There are a lot of myths about diabetes. That it’s caused by eating too much sugar. That it’s the result of laziness or weight gain. That it’s manageable, even trivial, if you just “watch what you eat.”

When my mother texts me now, she doesn’t ask how I am. She asks if I can send money for groceries.