Feature: Sally Wen Mao

If beauty signaled so much power, why did four out of four historical beauties die tragically?



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Photo of a small church beneath a vast starry sky. The cross atop the steeple glows.

i’ll pray for you when you leave

you’re not even catholic, and i’m not even catholic,
and we’ve just played the biggest prank on the church since
the time that those kids teepeed the courtyard at st. joseph’s.


A photograph of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge at daybreak. The bridge is still lit by evenly distributed light posts as the sky transitions from dark blue to light blue.

First Love

Sanctuary.
You are with me wherever I go.


Torn Lungs

Our bodies, my mother answers, //
when I ask her what the world reined. The world / tightening / its fist.


Image shows a woman on a beach with a blue sky and bright water. The woman is wearing a gray shirt and glasses, and looking at the sea. Her curly, voluminous brown hair blows in the wind.

Learn My Curls

Call me by my name. Say it / with the familiarity and reverence / of a spoken prayer.