On Karia
He says to me, maybe we don’t know the books, but around here we know things, too, things you don’t. His wife: We do. And here’s something everyone here learns when they’re a little baby: Jinns only appear to two types of people: those who believe too much and those who don’t believe at all.
The Shore
I knew...that if I entered the water, braved the waves’ momentary rush, all would quiet, and I would descend, slowly, away from everything above.
No ESmoking
My tías, a heavy, wet cloud around her, sobbing but holding abuela up. The dust of the road to the cemetery kicks up around their ankles. The wooden houses bow behind them, with respect. That’s what I would see, if I were there.
There Are Women and There Are Djinn
My great-grandfather was a scholar who taught the Quran to djinn, never accepting payment, so as not to bind himself to them. I want to believe this. That my great-grandfather was a person so powerful, he believed what he saw. A person so certain of his faith and his strength, he did something scary because he had to.
When I Am 19, a Woman I’ve Called about a Job Starts Telling Me about Her White Trash Neighbors
Momma explained how in other lives there are other kinds of nuisances, which is the difference between my mother and me: She did not want to be a bird of prey. She has made the best of it, learned to boil the blood down to a kind of sugar.
Some Girls Become Fixtures, Some Just Get Fixed
I remember, je me rappelle, how the maintenance man crouched and dealt with my clogged apartment arteries, pulling out strands of my hair like artifacts. Girls and their figments, imprints, always leaving something behind to memorialize themselves, the violence.