If you first see yourself in a host of ghosts, what does it mean to live despite that?

Their presence, as out gay boys, created a space and time where there was seemingly none in my life.

She is a history of black girlhood distilled by time and brutality.

I was convinced that if I just played the part right, I would be okay, I would be one of the girls.

To me, Lifetime movies were like fables: fantastical two-hour tales that imparted important morals to live by.

I am immersed in words. But in a place where I don’t speak the language, all that evaporates and I am reborn as inadequate, defective.