Going Home

1. I snap out of my forced reverie when I notice we are no longer on the tarmac road. I found it hard to nod off, car rides usually lull me, and now I have to open my eyes to see where we are going. The traffic snakes it way to where it seems like …

“You are not your usual self.”

What is a “usual self”? I was talking with a friend about this last week and she better articulated what I have been thinking about as far as this goes. People have a need to place things, ideas, and other people into neat boxes and simple definitions, viewing them from a single angle, a uni-dimension. …

Every time she has sex she tells me, a short WhatsApp message with a winky face at the end. She never mentions any names. I am sure she has in person, but I forget, busy as I am imagining ripping her clothes off when we are together. I always congratulate her, “You go, guuurrrrrlll!” I …

So Long, and Thanks for the Banana

You felt it: a foreboding so deep it was like staring into the night sky in the middle of June and with a blackout in progress. A keening so slicing, she could feel it from across the air. And she could feel it from across the room. You were being weird and you knew it. …

There will be quite a bit of this…

People will approach me and tell me how much they prayed for me, with that crinkling of their brows and slight tilt downwards of their heads, the sheepish supplicating grin and, to top it off, the sanctimonious nod. It was their special exhortation to their imaginary friend that cinched it, it was their words, only …

A Most Dangerous Question

Do you watch Empire? Say no and come across as snobbish and bourgeois, part of the “culturally elite”, too arrogant to care that for the first time in long time, there is a television show with predominantly black actors, from no less than what has often been considered a bastion of White America, Fox. The …

She smells like freshly baked vanilla biscuits. Her fragrance follows her wherever she walks and I can almost reach out and touch her in the corridors where she has stepped past, although out of sight, a few strides away, a short skip to the heaven in her presence. And in her presence, I do nothing …

Her picture does not lie. She looks in person just as she does in it: flawless caramel skin, a warm smile playing on her lips, bright eyes. No filter, no edits. Just her. Surprisingly, I could not stare at her. Her gaze held mine without flinching. That was refreshing. Most people look away stiffly. I …

Beer on a weekday has never been a good idea. But… With her, I am alternately the best and worst versions of myself. I couldn’t help myself. I feel suspended in the emulsion of her near-tangible essence, constantly half-drowning, not quite breathing and not quite dead also. She took me with her to her place. …

I was joking with one of my sisters a few days ago about how this song has become my life’s anthem. I listened to it when it had just come out, together with the other songs on the album, but now I am experiencing it anew, with a fresh pair of ears, like I am …