Perhaps we thought it'd never happen to us. 
That we were beyond the "E! True Hollywood Story" treatment. 
Our child stars are different. 
They came out unscathed, 
or made a comeback
or became convention staples with nostalgia podcasts. 

But then Michelle, Hayden, and Daveigh all died in quick succession. 

These Good Little 90's / 2000's Girls 
grow up to be Millennial women who spiral. 

We point to managers, mothers, men who dated them when they were hardly legal. 
We say if it wasn't for TMZ, gossip Reddits, the pressure for relevance...
We cross our arms and shake our heads, remembering our famous peers and thinking if only they had a normal life, they would've had a chance. 

I argue otherwise. 

This is addiction. 

The trauma source is 
ultimately
irrelevant. 

It doesn't matter 
if you were working in Hollywood since you could toddle,
if you made seven figures,
if everyone knew your face.

You may as well never have left your home town
barely made rent
had a few friends, some family. 

A pipe, a bottle, a needle, a crushed up pill. 
The weapon of choice is only an outfit 
dressing up the panacea.

When the coke is on a key, 
what's the difference 
if it opens up the gas station bathroom 
or a Porsche. 
Vodka is vodka whether you get it 
in a plastic bottle at a suburban Rite-Aid 
or in a tall chilled glass at the Four Seasons Moscow.   
The Percocet you're snorting 
can be stolen from your dad's knee surgery recovery supply, 
or delivered to you by your on-call Beverly Hills doctor. 

You cannot stand to be here. 
You have to leave. 
You hope to come back when things are better
though you'll settle for feeling better. 

All you want is to feel better. 

Your brain tells you that your feelings will kill you. 
Intolerable. 
Unbearable. 
The sensation feels drowning. 

You wish you could tell anyone 
"I need to find peace"
but life is a treadmill that's set to sprint
and people rely on you
and you have no time. 

Later, you say. 
Later I'll figure it out. 
I just have to get through today
this moment
this problem. 
You grab what you can 
to push through. 
You plan to quit when things are easier. 
It's too tough to stop now. 
And who even cares, right? 
You're showing up, smiling, 
what does it matter if you're dead on the inside? 

Women who were once Good Little Girls 
don't know how to pause
have trouble asking for help
fear failure above anything else. 
So they explode, implode, burn out, burn up. 

The tiny voice of Lilo
the football coach's little daughter
the notebook-carrying spy
had courage and gumption and pluck and tenacity.

Many audacious, precocious little girls
lose themselves on the way to adulthood.
It isn't only Hollywood that smothers talent and potential. 

To die of addiction is to succumb to a fatal, chronic illness. 
To recover from addiction is a miracle that can be afforded to anyone, 
given the chance. 

Even those Good Little Girls who
paused
got help
made peace with their fears, 
still feel that insecure, anxious creature inside, 
as it constantly squirms and screams in discomfort. 

It's the job of the women they've become 
to parent it, cooing,
"I understand, I understand. 
Take my hand,
here's how we'll survive this."

If only every Good Little Girl survived. 

Welcome to the Bisexual Women Club. 

Let's open this meeting by singing the classic Bisexual Women refrain: 
"They assume we're secretly straight, 
They assume we're secretly gay, 
But we're only people who like people 
At the end of the day." 

If this is your first time at the club, welcome. 

There are many facets to the Bisexual Women's Club: fellowship, activism, community support, education, and more. One of our main objectives is to shed our heternormative indoctrination, and allow our "queerness" to be the compass when engaging with romantic / sexual partners. It doesn't mean we stick to one gender (or non-gender). It simply means we're trying to divorce societal programming from our authentic desires. If we are with men, we do not have to follow the blueprint of our parents' heterosexual dynamic. If we are with women, we do not have to apologize or hide our attraction to the opposite gender. We accept and embrace all of ourselves. 

How do we do that? In many ways!
But this weekend? With a field trip!! 

Our biggest field trip for Pride Month is fast approaching. 
Not the Dyke March
(although we ARE going to that) 
but to a space seemingly specifically for us. Queer women who have had a lot of experiences in the male sphere. 
This reclamation experience doesn't require an orgy
(though obviously you can do that outside of this Bisexual Women's Club field trip) 
and straddles the spaces we feel pulled between.

We are going to see the all-female Radiohead cover band known as "Labiahead" at Le Poisson Rouge. 

It's truly the perfect Bisexual Women Club Pride event. 

C'mon, who among us hasn't dated a guy who could noodle the song "High and Dry" on his guitar as you hung out in his dorm room, or put on the album "Ok Computer" before laying you back on his pile of microfiber sheets he just bought at Target? At the very least, you might've listened to the entirety of "In Rainbows" with your older coworker crush, as you both smoked too much weed and you wondered what his skin tasted like. 

Radiohead is for everyone, sure. But there's a Straight Guy Stronghold that's got a real grip on the fanbase. I'll speak for myself when I say the quickest way to bond with a male who was born between 1972 and 2009 is to say you like Radiohead. Many women like Radiohead, too, but referencing any member of boygenius is going to get you a lot farther a lot quicker. 

So why is going to see a Labiahead concert the 2026 Pride field trip? 
Because it is the spirit of Bisexual Women Club. 

Though we cannot say the space will be entirely queer and/or female, we assume it will be the majority. Maybe straight males aren't even aware of this band! Either way, we deserve to reclaim Radiohead from the men who have shellacked their Old-Spice-Deodorant-scented opinions all over such fine musical mastery. 

We deserve to lock eyes with a soft butch from across the way as both of us flail and shake to "Bodysnatchers" and smile in goofy solidarity about how much this fucking rocks. We deserve to slow dance with a high femme as "House of Cards" is crooned, feeling her soft butterfly lips flutter against the nape of our necks. 

We deserve to remember that though a man may have gotten to us first in our sexual journey, or introduced us to Radiohead, doesn't mean they own it. 

The Bisexual Women Club is here to remind you that whatever is true for you, deep down, is worth claiming. It is not embarrassing or cringy or wrong. You are not an imposter. Take your experiences and the way you see the world, and claim them. Reshape what you want. 

We'll all go to Labiahead this weekend. Let us know if you need a ticket! 

Thank you for coming to the Bisexual Women Club! 
 

I’ve been super busy with writing plays this spring. I’ve been editing my still-untitled intergenerational play about amateur writers, I wrote and edited my newest TYA play Fairest of Them All (produced in December 2026!), and have been deep into researching / outlining my sapphic historical fiction play that I’ll submit to the the Old Town Playhouse Traverse City State Hospital play contest.

This May, I directed the production of my play That’s How You Win over at Professional Children’s School. Much like any play about high schoolers, the middle schoolers in our institution ate it up and begged for more. That reaction — down to the squeals and “oooh’s” when our leads finally kissed at the end — was worth all the work it took to get there!

So yeah, I’ve been unable to muster time / energy for separate creative thoughts that would normally be published here. But I miss this! I hope to be more active here now that I’m on a break from teaching.

In lieu of writing another grumpy poem about our materialistic, seemingly-doomed authoritarian culture, I am sharing an excerpt from That’s How You Win. In the play, our lead character writes and performs this original poem for the Forensics State Finals, which for all intents and purposes is a high-stakes, high school acting competition.

Enjoy!

JESSIE
I’m covered in grime, 
exhausted from months of scrambling. 
I finally make it to the top of the mountain. 
Only to find myself there. 

This is "Trust Fall” by Jessie Rosen. 

Well, it’s older me. Maybe 20 years, give or take? 
She asks:
“How does it feel to be here?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I haven’t taken a real breath since I started climbing.”

She asks: 
“How do you like the view?” 

“If I look down, I’ll see all I’ve missed. But if I look up? The open sky of possibility terrifies me. Don’t make me veer off into the unknown!”

She looks up. She knows the hunger I feel. 
We’ve had it since we can remember.
Only performing satisfies it.  
We’ll labor like our lives depend on it in order to experience
the magic trick,
the energy that carries us beyond 
to somewhere better, if only for a few hours.

“I need trail markers, maps,” I tell her, 
“to be picked, to be seen,
someone to tell me I’m good enough.
I can’t move until someone tells me to.”

“Stop,” she says.
“Stop worrying. 
Stop waiting.  
There are no trail markers where you’re going. It’s not about the ‘where’. 
The gift of performance is the gift. 
The future isn’t “The Future”: It’s simply the moment after ‘now’. 
No one can guarantee what happens next.”

She can see the worry and fear spread over my face. 
She grabs my hands. 

“I am here on this mountain to prove to you that everything is going to be okay. 
It’s going to be even better than okay. 
It’s going to be beyond what you even know you’re capable of. 
I am here to tell you I believe in you. 
You don’t believe in yourself now? That’s alright. 
You will some day. 
Some day the world will grow quiet, 
and you have no one but yourself to tell you 
that you deserve to be alive, to create, to love, to be loved.
Some day you’ll tell yourself you’re enough
and you’ll believe it.”

She hugs me tight. She hugs like my mom. 
She whispers:
“I love you.
You are exactly where you’re supposed to be. 
Let’s go into the big, blue openness together.”

“I’ll die,” I say.  

“I’m living proof you won’t.
Fall into my arms.
I know how to fly.”

If you're reading this, I am using this Substack as an excuse to procrastinate. 

No, no. 
"Evaluate". 

I've had some time off the last two weeks. I am so afraid of getting caught being unproductive, that spinning one plate isn't enough. Is this how you think, too? My brain believes no matter what I do, I'm missing out on something more important. Even when something's being achieved, it feels like I'm failing in some other area. 

I could be running right now. From January to mid March, I was training for the NYC United Half Marathon. Every time I had to squeeze in an hour-plus run, I'd groan about missing my writing time. 

I could be starting my first draft of The Fairest of Them All, my newest Theater for Young Audiences commission with Brooklyn Music School. I finished the outline over the weekend: the true story of Snow White and Rose Red, her sister. It's a really fun story! "Wouldn't it be so nice to finish this one ahead of schedule?" I gentle-parent myself, knowing that these types of plays in the past have been products of a mad-dash-write-through-June process. "Make a couple drafts before going into production in the fall, and maybe this play will be good enough get some publishing traction for once?" 

I could be making sense and taking stock of my latest full length play. On Thursday I just finished (OK I have one more scene I'll add this afternoon when I'm hyped up on Oslo coffee, shout out to the best coffee shop in NYC) a meandering first draft about an adult education creative writing class in Iowa. The play experiments with an audience's ability to process storytelling. Do we even have the patience anymore to listen to stories within stories? I genuinely don't know, but I spent the last several months building that experiment. A part of me wants to put it away for a while before I pick it apart. 

I'm picking apart myself.  
A lot. 
To be honest... 
I've been feeling insecure lately. 
Maybe that's obvious. 
I feel like I'm in need of a tune-up. Some notes.

In the spirit of normalizing rejection and taking myself more seriously as a playwright, I began tracking my play submissions on a Google Sheets document in late 2024. 

Like many things in my life, it's color coded:
"Orange" is for "pending".
“Yellow” is for "rejected".
"Blue" is for "semi finalist" or "second round". 
"Purple" is for "accepted".

There's a sea of yellow and orange, a couple drops of blue, and one lonely purple splotch (Ghostlight Theater company, who produced a workshop and reading of Dead Girls Club in August). 

All the productions or opportunities I've had since starting the list, beyond that one purple moment, have been a result of a direct outreach. The musical in Newport, the TYA commissions, the reading of Again with Flux, the upcoming play with my day job school, the reading of I'm Saving You a Seat at Angels Theater in Nebraska, were all direct invitations. However, a lot of those "invitations" are from a relationship forged from a "cold submission" opportunity. 

It's the same thing I encountered as an actor, the Catch-22 of it all. 

You have to be picked in order to move forward. 
And you have to be brilliant to be picked.
Or know the picker. 

At least with acting, I could blame it on my face, my weight, my teeth, my general "unfuckability" in the context of patriarchal systems within show business. 
With writing rejections, it's hard not to believe I'm unoriginal, pedestrian, and fucking stupid. 
(I know, "Way harsh, Tai".)
Being a performer-playwright doubles, not "halves", your rejections. 
And right now it's a trash fire when it comes to money and opportunity for theater. 
So I can't take it personally. 
But I know I can do better.

So I keep writing, I guess?! 

I want to grow. Seeing shows helps. Reading plays helps. I'm taking workshops and classes this year, mostly in the tiny windows I don't have huge work projects that take up too much of my bandwidth. 

I'm not asking for much in way of improvement: I only want to be as creative and intelligent as the newest 23 year old wunderkind whose play is being produced at MCC or Playwrights or the Old Globe. 

I know I need to get better at this. 
But I feel often like my brain is full. 
Day job drama, pet parent logistics, maintaining relationships, living under fascism.

I miss the days where you'd make it to the end of the Internet in less than an hour and there was nowhere left to disassociate. 

Maybe being a 37 year old woman in 2026 with no filler or Botox or children or trust fund or micro-trend fashion or desire to cook or international travel plans is just a fucking weird place to be. 

None of us know where any of this is going. 

It's all very "First Draft". 

So I'm excited to get notes and make it better. 

Cover art by Batsyhead

If you have a heart, you're scared. 

Take a breath. 

When someone disappoints you, take a second to remember what you both agreed to. Who's really in charge. 

Yes, that Hertz counter worker should be giving you your car on time. 
But is that Hertz counter worker short staffed? How much are they being paid? Are they in charge of the cars? Did they create congestion pricing that you're trying to avoid? Do they control the economy? 

Nah. 

Yes, your kid's teacher didn't give them the Sugar Plum Fairy role in the winter ballet this year, even though you were nice to her and helped backstage last recital and baked cookies for the fundraiser. But maybe bribery isn't how she casts the ballet shows. And your kid's crying about being a snowflake again, but you haven't noticed that this year's Sugar Plum Fairy may be headlining a ballet company in ten years. And your kid rocks, but she's not going to be a professional dancer. 

Maybe you can just enjoy her dancing. Maybe you don't yell at someone who's not making enough to cover her rent from this job. 

We're all tired. 

We're all really fucking tired. 

One of my mother's favorite ways to spread some love is to be nice to grocery store employees. It's the easiest thing to do. You look them in the eyes and actually ask them how they are. Or respect their energy if you can tell that they'd prefer to just do their job and not make small talk. But the check-out cashiers at the Kroger's on Long Lake and Telegraph road always liked it. 

It's also never too late to apologize, if you lost your cool. As someone who has been on the "customer service" side many, many times over the years, I almost respect the person who takes accountability after being rude more than the person who was never rude to begin with. It's courageous to admit a mistake and proceed to repair it. Side-stepping egotistical pride and making a more vulnerable connection is a sign of respect for the other person.

We're all just people doing our best. 
Forgive the small hiccups. 
Call out the real wrongs with your full chest and strong foundation.

In an ever-increasing fascistic oligarchy, it's important to remember what unites us. It's imperative to remember most of us are messengers. It's the systems and the billionaires that have the boots on our necks, not the insurance representative you've been on hold with or your kid's after-school chess teacher who forgot to give them an extra snack. 

I'm in no way saying that being polite and compassionate in brief conversations with relative strangers can dismantle our wealth inequality and oppressive government. 

I'm only saying it could help us resist it a little more.  

Art By Melodie Perrault

DISCLAIMER CW: Mental health and suicide. 

Emily Dickinson described "hope" as "a thing with feathers". 
My memory was jogged to recall this often-used-in-school poem by one of my ninth graders, who had to memorize it for English class. It's an encouraging short piece, dedicated to those who need a reminder of resilience. 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

But making hope "the thing with wings" also illustrates the difficulty in obtaining that promise of "it will get better". 

Such wild flying creatures are 
elusive, ephemeral,
not easy to obtain 
especially with poor hand-eye coordination. 

Why, a despondent person could ask, is it so far away? So high? 
It flies too fast. 
It never comes when it's called. 

The absence of hope, 
a death of faith, 
condemns the sufferer to conclude 
termination 
offers the ultimate relief. 

Self-directed death feels like a good answer
but it is never 
the best 
answer. 

I have been thinking about my high school friend Chris at lot, lately. 

My latest play that's going into production - That's How You Win - is a semi-autobiographical snapshot of my high school forensics team experience. All the characters are composites of different versions of my adolescent self and people I acted alongside in high school. I named our main male character after him, though Chris's real personality is scattered between a couple of the roles. 

I loved Chris. 
I loved his passionate world view, our well-spoken connection. 
He was an intellectual, a goofball, a sweetheart, a scamp, a tenacious hard worker. 

His confusion over his identity allegiances - to the culture he was raised in, to the cultures he felt the most comfortable in, to the cultures he aspired to integrate himself in -  disturbed and depressed him, but very few of us knew that. Like many great entertainers, he knew how to hide in plain sight with high energy and great jokes. 

One night during the Christmas season, he fell into a riptide of bleakness and despondency, and died. 

The aftershock in our community mirrored the global reaction to Robin Williams's death, which had occurred four months before Chris's. 
"Why him?"
"Didn't he know how much we loved him?"
"Why didn't he ask for help?"
"How is he gone?"

My freshman year in forensics, there was this one school that performed a forensics multiple about suicide and its prevention. My teammates and I, being stupid high school kids, used to quote it dramatically throughout the year with the silly dark humor a lot of teenagers have. Throughout the piece, the performers would shout "SUICIDE!" as a group, very theatrically, then one half of the kids would say, "A permanent solution!" and the other half would say "To a temporary problem!" We would randomly quote this and laugh, but to their credit, I'm still thinking about it over two decades later. I mean, they were right.

A bad season of life made Chris leave many, many years too soon. He never saw the legalization of gay marriage. He never had the family I think he wanted some day. He never played all the roles he was right for. He never traveled as far as he dreamed of going. He never made the hundreds, if not thousands, of friends he would've made. He never made all of those friends and family laugh until they cried, a skill he had practically perfected before graduating high school. 

Chris was only 24. If he had held on, gotten to the other side of those insurmountable feelings, I feel strongly that he would be here. If he was still here, he'd be 36 in a couple weeks.

Being in recovery for over fifteen years, I have met a lot of people who have tried to end their lives. I, myself, have struggled with passive suicidal ideation since I was in middle school. It comes up mainly when a situation or feeling feels so intolerable I wouldn't care if my life blipped out of existence. Yes, even in recovery. Thankfully, I haven't felt that "I should walk into the ocean" feeling strongly in several years, but that isn't to say I haven't had moments of it in a perform storm of nervous system overwhelm and a stressful, triggering circumstance. 

The majorly shitty thing is, almost every person I know who has attempted to self-terminate - successfully or not - has been an incredibly sparkly, special individual that the world desperately needs around. Not someone who feels special or important in retrospect because their lives were cut short. I mean someone who you miss their presence when they're sick and stayed home from that party you were both going to go to, when they're away on a trip for what seems like forever, when the are too busy to hang out for a while. Then when you finally get together again, five minutes into the hang out you think to yourself:

"God, I fucking love this person. What would I do without them?"

It's horribly unfair. 

I think the most sensitive, imaginative, righteous people struggle to stay grounded and balanced in a world not built for them. A world that seems to run on fear, competition, futility, and cruelty. Acts of kindness, compassion, and love seem to be acts of defense, when it should be on the offense. 

It's hard to believe the sun still shines, somewhere, when we experience night. 
But it does.  

We find it difficult to believe the bird of Hope will survive the storms we face. 
But it can.
And the bird does not ask us to believe in it. 
It will exist regardless. 

As an agnostic, I am forever annoyed by the slipperiness of faith as an abstract concept. But faith as an action? 
That is hope to me. 

In my greatest moments of despair, I have clung to survival because of the people who have loved me through it, even when I haven't wanted their love. 
They knew and had experienced how I felt. 
But they had seen the bird. 
They told me I could never hold it, never capture it and keep it forever. 
I had to train my eyes to find it in the sky. 
Adjust my sight to the darkness. 
Spot the thing with feathers. 
Let it carry me. 

It can carry any of us. 
It can carry all of us. 

Cover art by Aykut Aydoğdu

As I try to extricate myself from the pathological opening and closing of apps on my phone, 
I debate if I'm preserving my sanity 
or if I'm hiding from reality. 

It must be former, right? 

Our brains cannot process the content we scroll. 
The cotton-candy-coded visuals and info-dumps disappear from our consciousness in seconds. 
All I'm left with are overstimulated retinas and lost time. 
It's a fantastic way to disassociate, and I've been doing it too often.
I have to fast from instant gobbles of dopamine. 

I've been looped in to running in another half marathon. 
(By my little sister, of course, like the last time in 2022)
I asked my elite runner co-worker for training advice. 
He laid out a hand-made plan 
(with drawn-out calendar grid and penciled-in schematics).
It included the expected the intimidating long runs, some easy runs, but also some brutal sprint workouts. 

What's been the most difficult about the training has been the weather 
(too long, too snowy, too cold for most of us)
but the mileage this week was especially cruel
(20 rounds of 400 meter sprints one day, plus the usual short and long runs).
Though it was the 6th week out of the 9-week training course, it seemed too much.
So at lunch, I asked my pal what the purpose of this week's plan was. 

"I'm doing a 5 mile sprint day in the same week as my 11 mile run. Isn't going too hard, doing too much in a short amount of time, going to lead to injury?"

And in his typical Gen-X-er-meets-Mr.-Rogers way he replied, simply:

"You're learning to run on tired legs."

 If that isn't the theme of the last 10 years, I don't know what is. 

In the early days of the pandemic, a trusted friend at the time regaled his 30's being the best years of his life. It was 2020, so I rolled my eyes. Being also of the age bracket of my co-worker coach, it was easy for him to have a wonderful time in his 30's when Obama was starting his first Presidential term, optimistic indie rock was rampant, and one was old enough to have a good cushion of money from a career in journalism and cost of living was as such that he could pay for a one bedroom in nearby borough for a song and still save for retirement.

As I entered my thirties, we were living against the backdrop of Fascism Light ™, then a global pandemic, then an unrecoverable economic inflation that stratospherically widened the wealth gap, then Roe was overturned and the results started killing and/or incarcerating women, then we were witness to horrific global genocides, then had to combat and "navigate" the unbelievably stupid rise of AI, and now we're in Full Blown Fascism ™ that encapsulates all the issues that came before it with a bonus of plastic surgery becoming normal and expected?!  

Like, how am I supposed to have any fun? 

I am learning to run on tired legs. 

In my ungrateful, bratty moments, I want to rail against reality. 
Much like my brutal sprint workouts, I don't like it.
I'd like to return this reality and powerlessness, please. 
I want the privileges afforded other generations. 
(I'm sure I'd have made a great neoliberal Boomer) 
I am scared of a future that, if it trends in the direction it's been going for most of my adult life, seems bleak and unaffordable and foreign to the concepts and values I hold dear. 
But the future is coming, whether I like it or not. 

I am learning to run on tired legs. 

Moving, 
writing, 
connecting, 
loving, 
exploring, 
trying, 
playing, 
is the methodology. 

I push the keys on my laptop and transform blank pages into tiny worlds filled with people who strive for something more not because I think it will fix anything beyond myself, 
but because there is no other option. 

I am setting timers and locking my phone because there is nothing there for me except 
materialism
fatalism
powerlessness
mythologies I need to live without. 

Time keeps going faster. 
The world keeps getting scarier. 
I continue to live. 
I have to adapt. 

I am learning to run on tired legs. 

Art by Sveta Shubina

Mary had a well in her backyard. 
It was magically endless, much like Doctor Who's TARDIS or Mary Poppins' carpet bag. But it did not contain Practically Perfect items or mechanisms to fly across time and space.
 
The well had men. 

Specifically, the well contained all the men that Mary had met who had failed to meet her needs. She did not believe her needs were even that specific, or special. In fact, Mary believed herself to be "a work in progress" and therefore empathized with a flaw or two. She wouldn't dream of pushing any man into the well on the first, second, or even third red flag. 

And somehow, many, many men were in the bottom of this well. Not all men who proved the bar was in Hell were in the well. Only the men who proved that point AND were valuable for literary lore. After all...

Mary was a writer.
Mary had deadlines. 
Mary had career goals. 
Mary had to write.

Mary couldn't speak solution to the social and political problems that were piling up faster and faster with every refresh of her feed. Which feed? All of them. The tsunami of fascism was insurmountable. Who would even want to read the writings of a white, working class, Millennial bisexual anyway? Who the fuck cares to be bothered with someone's structured regurgitation of their imagination, unless it was to escape or mollify?

Mary decided all she could do is write relatable human-relationship-based stories, and hope it provided a degree of illumination, comfort, or both. It was better than scrolling. 

Mary's well was mainly for the shorter term projects. Things that required a popcorn-like vignette: enjoyable but brief, low effort, but more substantial than a video you forgot you watched two swipes later.

"Hey!" she shouted into the well. "I need content!" 

A tall, well-built man in his early 50's, grey-white hair in a tidy barber cut, was the first to volunteer. "Remember when you shoved me in here because I said I needed to date someone who was more invested in my Pokemon Go hobby?"

"Yah," she sighed. "I'm still trying to work out how much of that was bullshit, and much you were completely serious. You're still hovering in my Notes app."

"I was serious!" He was adamant. "Honestly? I want a customizable side piece for my open marriage. Someone who doesn't need any emotional availability from me, who will hook me up with sex parties and threesomes, and play games with me where we can parallel-play disassociate. That is, of course, when she isn't being an open mouth for me to finish in! Like, isn't that the whole point of the Sexual Revolution that is Mainstream Polyamory? Being able to be highly specific in our pursuit of people?" 

"Jesus Christ." Mary shook her head. "Who else do we have?" 

Another above-six-footer-with-grey-hair rose his hand, in a way that a dog guiltily admits they ate your food. 

"Yah, no, I see you," Mary waved her traumatic ex-boyfriend away. "Don't go too far, but I'm trying to garner new content right now. Anyone else?"

She surveyed the well as faces and bodies started to sharpen in focus. 

"Ugh," she sighed. "It's getting sad how many of you look like you'd match up in a police sketch. I need to stop dating older men."

"Hey!" a still-blurry face shouted amongst the crowd. 

"Hey yourself!" Mary shouted back. "If any of you had acted like a grown up with emotional intelligence, clear communication, and boundaries, you wouldn't be in this well! Nightmare dating was supposed to be a thing in your 20's, not 30's and 40's."

The men seemed confused. They, after all, always have a great time with Mary. Prior to being shoved down a well, that is. Mary was, to them, unreasonable in her demands. 

"What about a vasectomy?" Mary tried again. "Any of you have one? I know none of you want to reproduce any, or any more, kids. It's been almost four years since Roe was overturned. I'll let anyone out if you somehow got one, down there."

A flurry of voices: 
"I always use a condom!" 
"It's on my list, I promise."
"Eh, nope." 

Mary stepped away from the well. 

What had been intended as inspiration for nostalgic or humorous content had devolved into nihilism and overwhelm.  

Mary decided the best course of action was to write aspirational, escapist fiction instead. 

Here's the real gossip, ladies. 

As I have my dog curled up next to me like a beignet, both of us spending most of the morning waiting for the MTA to fix a water main break and get water running in my apartment again, I realize my frequency in your inbox has been few and far between this past fall and winter. 

It is partially 
lack of bandwidth (boo), 
lack of heartbreak (yay),
but mainly lack of "extra" (IKYK). 

Like a scavenger, I've been collecting and hoarding all creative inspiration for my plays these days. I am "forced" (aka very blessed and lucky to have the opportunity to do this) to direct three shows a school year, plus the normal amount of coaching and teaching, which leaves me with little to no room to create any extra content beyond "the next play". 

I'm superstitiously hoarding some poems and pieces that are going to go into my next show that will hopefully start production without a hitch in February and premiere in May. Once those chunks of text are spoken out loud by their actors in rehearsals, I'd feel like they'll have gotten the Blue Fairy treatment and therefore can be read by you all. 

I find directing several shows at once while also trying to write others AND apply for All The Things So My Plays Can Be Produced to be like juggling at least three machetes on fire. I've been telling my seniors that if they want to be filmmakers or actors, get ready for a lifetime of feeling like you're doing college applications. Every application has a different word count for your bio, a different formatting requirement, and a different type of play they want to see. It's all work. You can't stop working. 

Acting and writing are both still Pick Me jobs at the end of the day, but at least with writing I can write without needing permission. 

So thanks for your patience as I grapple my way through 2026. If you've gotten this far in reading it, here are some pieces of creativity I loved and enjoyed for the first time in 2025 and recommend: 

FILMS

• Sinners

• Mulholland Drive

• Magic Mike XXL

• Saint Maud

• Love Lies Bleeding

• My Mom Jayne

• Pee Wee as Himself (TV limited series)

• Nickel Boys

• Sing Sing

• All We Imagine as Light

• Robot Dreams (film and book both)

PLAYS / MUSICALS

• Indecent (read it)

• She Kills Monsters (read it)

• Witch by Jen Silverman (read it)

• In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot

• Liberation

• Antiquities

• Dorothy’s Dictionary

• Oh Mary (Jinkx and Betty Gilpin’s versions are tied, Titus was fine but his choices were too general)

BOOKS

• Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

• Meet Kirsten (yes I joined an American Girl Doll book club this year, best idea ever)

• The Color Purple (book > musical > films)

• There There

• Whiskey Tender

• The Creation of Anne Boleyn

• Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer

TV SERIES

• RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17, makeover episode specifically.

• Pluribus

• The Gilded Age, especially enjoying the finale in Newport on the same day we visited the Elms and Breakers, and working alongside the actor who played Caroline Astor

• The Chair Company

• Andor

• Hacks

• Somebody Somewhere

ALBUMS

I barely see concerts anymore, but the best one by far was a concert called “Four Queens, Four Legends” where I got to see Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Stephanie Mills, and Gladys Knight perform in 45 minute segments. It was absolutely the best concert of the year. If it happens again, you simply have to go.

Anyway, here’s also some music that was new or new to me that I enjoyed:

• GIRLS by Princess Nokia

• Everybody Scream by Florence + the Machine

• Clarity of Cal by Vulfpeck

• Alligator Bites Never Heal by Doechii

Maybe my next piece will be inspired by the interaction I had with my celebrity crush back in May of 2025. I promise not to wait too long to write it!

First of all, I’m sorry for being more MIA than usual! Work and writing plays have had a chokehold on me (choke me harder, theater!) and my usual quick pithy lit creations haven’t had enough time to take shape like months in the past.

Second, if you’re in NYC please come to my modern adaptation of The Odyssey titled The Odyssey: A Girl’s Journey Home playing Dec 11th - 13th in Brooklyn!

This is my second commission with Brooklyn Music School, and I’m excited to throw down the Greek story gauntlet before Christopher Nolan and Matt Damon get their grubby, predictable, patriarchal hands all over the myth and make it unwatchable again.

Have you ever uttered, exasperatedly, something like

“I’m ___ years old, why haven’t I stopped feeling __!”

or

“I thought I was done with [insert psychological / emotional trouble here]!”

or even

“___ doesn’t trigger me any more, so why is __ making me feel insane?!”

Well into adulthood, we’re moving past the more glaring emotional troubles that came from nature, nurture, or trauma (or all three). Yet, for every battle won against our baser instincts, we are rewarded with even more homework.

In the rooms of recovery we call it “peeling the layers of the onion”. That’s when you discover a deeper personal issue after resolving the more obvious problems. Apt to call it “layers of the onion”, considering it’s uncomfortable, may result in tears, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

My perfectionism has been in remission for years. What I didn’t realize is that I had a voracious dragon laying in the deeper need underneath the mask of perfectionism: a requirement of being liked by everyone.

On a further investigation, it was more “either everyone has to like me or never think about me, ever”. This didn’t apply to one-time-interactions or strangers. But the idea of being disliked by someone I had to constantly interact with felt unacceptable. No matter how many mantras, “detaching with love”, and reality checks of “not everyone is going to like you and that’s ok” I exercised, I still had a minor tummy ache every time I walked into a room with any “I don’t like her” people.

Marrying logic and emotion is the result of a spiritual miracle, usually from a lot of crawling through metaphorical mud and repeated humiliating failures.

Now, I am completely fine with not being someone’s taste. My dad doesn’t like Meryl Streep (except for her turn as Miranda Priestly in “Devil Wears Prada”). Fine! Someone doesn’t like how loud and opinionated and talkative and obnoxious I am? No problem, I get it. (I wish I could curb my personality, too. I try, it never sticks).

So it’s not that I need everyone to like me. I just want anyone who doesn’t like me to not think about me at all. The reality of people having the wrong idea about me, walking around with an inaccurate version of me in their heads, is horrifying. But it happens to everyone, and often. Try as we might, we may never be able to change their version of us. What a nightmare!

The good news is that we CAN re-groove our neural pathways. Like the bigger, more consequential issues of yore that I’ve quieted, putting this issue to bed takes consistent, persistent practice. Emotional hurdles are like an underdeveloped muscle and, like muscles, these weaknesses can grow stronger and healthier through opposite thoughts and actions. For every moment I am about to dive into anxiety regarding outside opinions, I can breathe and remember that as long as I’ve met all my obligations well, that’s what matters.

New mental reflexes take work. Like the gym, no one likes doing the work. The only reason I even do the work is because NOT doing the work is more painful. That’s that onion layer for ya. I can only hope that this muscle of opinion-neutrality I’m developing is more in the realm of push-ups rather than pull-ups. Over ten years of lifting, I still can’t do one unassisted pull up!

But pushups? I got those in the dozens.

Art by batsyhead

I know you're catching your breath.
 
Life keeps piling it on and you're trying not to suffocate.

You're tempted stop breathing. 
Because it's not entirely unpleasant
--the overwhelm--
In a way, it's like baskets and baskets of laundry are being dumped on you:
you're getting sleepy from the dryer's warmth, 
from the weight of layers of cotton and polyester. 
At a certain point you wave away help.
Better to surrender to the feeling.
Easier to stop batting away the constant problems. 
Let them pile on.

But!
You're trying to break patterns!
Serenity and grit have to couple to counter depression and hopelessness. 
Life keeps putting people, places, and things in your path 
when it's time to let go 
or learn 
or both.

You're tempted to cross the street
when you see your fabled ex queued up for a concert. 
Because it's not entirely unpleasant
--the dysregulation--
In a way, it's like taking drugs and letting your emotional impulses take the wheel:
you have free will and feel justified for some bad behavior now,
maybe text someone who's a mediocre kisser but is obsessed with you, or binge eat a quart of ice cream. 

This ex is, after all, the quintisential monster under your bed. 
It's their fault for going to a venue a block away from your home. 
But! 
You're breaking patterns! 
It's your fault for letting their presence hold power. 
As you walk up the sidewalk and make conversation, it's clear it's in your head. 

When you leave the small talk and return home, you're aware the fictional version of this person and the real version certainly have overlap, but are not one in the same. 
The ghost in your heart has become an endless mine for poetic and theatrical fodder,
but the divergence between that version and the living one widens as time goes on. 
At least you certainly hope so, for their loved ones' sake.

You want to demonize others in perpetuity, 
you want to lean into the reductive thinking,
but you're trying to break patterns. 
"We have to stay curious and open minded," I say. 
"To a point," I know you'll reply. 

"Yes," I will agree. 
"Progress, not perfection, with breaking patterns."

Cover art by Aykut Aydoğdu

I have been working with Flux Theater Ensemble on a devised project called The Portal Project for the last couple years, and we’re finally having workshop performances the weekend of October 11 and 12 in NYC. You can RSVP here for all the info!

Below is a piece from our devising workshops in 2023 that didn’t make it into the 2025 version of the show. If we performed everything written for the show over the last two years by the half-a-dozen artists involved, the show would be 20 hours long.

Anyway! Enjoy!

Imagine you have a core wound. It manifests as low self esteem. 
Maybe you don’t have to imagine it. 

Imagine that, when you were younger, you’d fantasize about a person who would make you feel perfect. They’d be kind, encouraging, funny, and the epitome of beautiful. The kind of Jake-Ryan-in-Sixteen-Candles type of beautiful, and you’re Molly Ringwald in the bridesmaids dress pointing to yourself going “Who me?” And suddenly you’re sitting cross-legged on a table together, kissing over your birthday cake. You don’t need to make a wish, because it’s already come true. Your relentless insecurity is wiped away. The Hot Person Who Loves You For Who You Are has come. You’re pure, you’re complete, you’re normal. You did it. 

The Other Version of myself, living on the other side of the Portal we've found, probably still carries that fantasy in her back pocket. She knows it’s not real, but much like with kids and the Tooth Fairy, hope encourages her to believe in it. I hope she’s ok. I hope she never meets that Fantasy Person. 

I met mine in May of 2020. A trauma bond from on-high. 

Remember how long 2020 and 2021 felt? Imagine that while falling in love. It was like a rocket back from space, on fire, metal falling, needing a parachute to land in the sea type of love. 

Imagine you found your Fantasy Person Who Will Show You You’re Perfect. 
Imagine they tell you that you are theirs. 

You’re both delusional. You’re both playing pretend, yet feeling like everything is finally real. No one has seen you like they do. No one sees them like you do. 

Love is a vending machine where everything is free. 

They are the sun and you are the moon.
And then one day, the sun explodes. 

You’re hemorrhaging love. You feel bitter, resentful, obsessive. You want to eviscerate the Ultra Hot Person Who Loves You For Who You Are But Can’t Do This’s existence. You want to punish and forgive in equal terms. You want to rid yourself of this bitterness and you never want to forget how horrible this person was. Their betrayal creates a tectonic shift in your psyche.  

Every seven years, our bodies have a completely new set of cells. 
This love’s termination felt like you got them instantly. 

It wasn’t entirely the fault of the Ultra Hot Fantasy Person. There were so many green flags, but a very, very giant red flag that shadowed all the little green ones. 
You thought you could climb the flag pole and take it down yourself. 

Imagine you miss who you were before. 

My Other Version - that woman on the other side of the portal - doesn’t have that first-hand devastating experience. We both need to touch a hot stove, unfortunately. “Experiential learners”.

All my selves in the multiverse are sensitive. Maybe there’s a couple that don’t have a gaping spiritual wound, a hole for someone to climb in and mold themselves into its shape like memory foam. 

I pray that My Other Self never finds that Fantasy Person in her universe. Through the Portal, I can see she holds the heart in her hands, ready to give it. During the darkest days, where life feels like a haunted house, I may feel envious of her. But most days, I worry about her. 

Ignorance is bliss, but it’s also an invitation. 
I can see she's ready to hand her heart over to someone beautiful 
who will most certainly eat it. 

Come watch my play!

Flux Theater Ensemble is producing a reading of my play Again at 7:30 pm on Sunday September 21st. And you don’t even have to be in New York, it’s all virtual!!

You can get the Zoom link by RSVP’ing here.

Again follows Nick (Chris Wight) and Tara (HJ Farr) who reunite during COVID years after a complicated student-teacher history. What unfolds is a kaleidoscopic love story that weaves through time and power dynamics.

Hope you’ll join us, it’s a 75ish minute “Rated R” (sexuality) adventure of two complicated people who might be soulmates in a very complicated way.

xoxoxo

Sarah

My dog barks at nothing.

She's waiting for the construction men to scale our building, 
Neon Demons in pulley systems threatening her territory. 

She only stops when she's barked all she can, 
exhausting herself into a state of surrender. 
Her tense body melts into a marshmallow belly and soft fur. 
She says 
"If this is the end, so be it."

But after an hour of recharge, 
if she sees the ropes swing in the window,
she's ready to fight again.

---

On a Sunday
I bullet over the Hell Gate bridge 
Barrel through Long Island City
My ears clog.

Another Sunday I return 
shakier and insecure 
like my social identity in 5th grade. 

—

Vampire Weekend comes up on the exploitative music streaming service I overpay for. I am contributing to the AI / billionaire fund that will likely lead to the apocalypse.

Vampire Weekend makes me think of the summer I was too fucked up to function (emotionally, spiritually, physically) and the person who fucked me up so much I thought I’d never function again (emotionally, spiritually).

I wonder if I over-mine the “ex fodder”. 
It makes me feel like Taylor Swift, 
self-directed insult intended. 

The work is not motivated by bitterness, but a spell of sorts;
creative curse or charm, to repel or lure 
depending on the audience. 

I wouldn't claim to be proud of it,
but the Content Gods are hungry 
and it's easy chum.

---

I ran past roadkill and it sent shivers up my spine. 

Why can't I go faster? 

All of God’s creatures collide into one another fatally at some point, 
whether is a virus or an Escalade. 

But when I was younger, my parents would distract me from seeing dead raccoons on the side of the road.

---

My bike accident has made me paranoid and angry,
shouting at road-rule-breakers,
shaking my head at helmet-less recklessness. 

My therapist says everything is risk. 

To exist is to sign a waiver, 
agreeing that to live is to invite pain
and eventually succumb to death. 

I'm too shaky these days. 

How much anti-anxiety medication is for my own brain, 
and how much is it for the world I have to walk through?

Can the meds cushion life's blindsiding circumstances, that jettisons us into an entirely new way of existing? 

When we're all so fearful, rage is so quick to spew. 
Can we all agree to pause and have some compassion?

If my dog knew the men in neon can't hurt her, 
that they're on the other side of thick glass 
and have no interest in her whatsoever, 
there would be no reason to bark. 

Parisians have the Seine, New Yorkers have the East River.

A short strip of water that dead ends to the bottom of the Bronx and begins in that nebulous mush of the beaches in Brooklyn and lower Queens. 

Every time May was in midtown Manhattan and had to venture to the East River, it felt like her stomach was going to drop out from her vulva. Psychological prolapse. She couldn’t literally see June from the banks of the FDR highway, but she knew that was the direction of her existance.

If she had to look at the East River, being on the Brooklyn side was easier. When looking out across the body of too-toxic-to-swim water, nothing out on that strip of Manhattan held much meaning. The wasteland of the tunnel exits and bridge entrances, Kips Bay, Soviet-looking apartment complexes, and several hospital campuses.

May’s uterus was cleaned out in one of those medical conglomerates. June’s child was born in another. Their respective hospitals shared the same campus and reproductive procedures only weeks apart. May’s baby making machine was covered in cobwebs. Though June’s had many false starts, eventually created life. 

When they were falling in love, May and June had spent many many summer evenings lazing about in a Queens park, on the east river. A parade of jet skiers would often pass as they snuggled and made out like middle schoolers among the family cookouts and volleyball games. 

Even years later, when May’s eyes fell upon the strip of water, it was like standing in the back of a movie theater, watching the ghosts perform on screen. It amazes her, the audience member, that these characters don’t recognize the Greek tragedy they’re a part of. The hubris is so strong that — in retrospect — the story feels like a first draft. Could stand more nuance in the next one.  

In that long-ago-time, June had a complicated relationship to parenthood. She felt its predestinate allure but couldn’t let go of leash-less adventure and exploration. She wanted a baby girl, but didn’t want to surrender May, the woman she called “baby girl”. She wanted to stay in the swaddle of Sapphic comfort and affection, but perform the pantomime of heteronormativity to obtain the family she craved. Having an affair with her lover and a baby with her husband was a lot easier for June than a much-more-expensive life upheaval.

Besides, as June would cry to May at the end of her relationship, how could she know for sure that May would provide the things she expected from her husband? May was a slutty artist with a heart too big for critical thinking. June knew, deep down, that May’s choice of being with her was an exhibition in poor judgement. Who signs up to break their own heart?

May and June had been to Paris; separately, before they had met. Each had traipsed through the Musee de Orsay on separate occasions. Rodin’s real estate there is impressive, and extends to his muse / protégée / and mistress Camille Claudel. She made a sculpture, "The Mature Age", dedicated to aging but likely about her love for Rodin and hatred towards his common-law wife, who - in the sculpture piece - takes him away from her kneeling, pleading self. 

When May and June discussed the piece on a date, the pair agreed it was a true but misguided feeling of desperation and love. Rodin had it both ways, and his wife was not to blame. The two women shook their heads: how much energy could be saved if people could discard cowardly men? They squeezed hands on this intellectual note, feeling superior to the hetero women of the world.

But May felt a secret relation to Miss Claudel. 

Today, looking over at the dirty water from her doctor’s window, May wished for the shame to belong only to June. She half-hoped her physician would offer a light lobotomy to erase the associations of these rivers, neighborhoods, bridges, songs, movies, phrases. But the pain was like a psychological shock collar: a reminder of the masochistic extents she could go in pursuit of affection.

May would not be institutionalized like Camille Claudel. She could hold the uncomfortable past in one hand and the brighter future in another, braiding together the reality in which she lived.

We moved to the suburbs because the city was too expensive to raise our child.

I had to beg my mother to cut her Florida time short so she could help watch the baby during the move. There’s so much to unpack. My dad came, too. He was surprisingly helpful with the baby, though even more helpful with handyman tasks. The garage needs work. And the yard. And the roof. And the windows. And we still don’t have a dishwasher. Houses with dishwashers cost more.

We’ll get a dishwasher later. Maybe after we get a second car.

I’ve already started looking for teaching opportunities. My husband works remote right now so he doesn’t need a new job. I’m considering auditioning for a community theater production of “Guys and Dolls” in the fall. I may not mention my Equity / SAG status.

This is for the baby. It’s all for the baby / someday kid / someday young adult / someday adult / someday caregiver.

I proclaimed I would be forever “child-free” as I skipped through my twenties and early thirties. Having a baby seemed impossible, like flying to the moon. My high school classmates who were parents felt like teen moms to me.

But then my pals who were also in theater started having kids. Somehow. Some of them married finance bros, sure, but some of them were still artists. Didn’t we have to choose? I worried about having enough money for my dog, how were they affording a kid? “You make it work,” they would say.

The news of the world became increasingly nightmarish. How could they bring another person into it? Things were getting worse, not better. “The most punk rock thing you can do is to bring another person into this reality. That’s rebellious optimism,” they would say.

I rolled into my mid-thirties no longer feeling like I didn’t want kids. But I wasn’t allowed to want kids. I felt I had failed my biological and spiritual destiny either way. Child-free people have fabulous trips to far-away places and are out until 4 a.m., neither of which I was doing. Child-free women have incredible bodies due to their lack of symbiotic servitude, whereas mine kept on its warpath to metabolically slowing down. Child-free people are supposed to be so ambitious and busy, children would only get in the way. Yet my artist-parent-friends — who would claim they don’t get anything done — churned out brilliant work at an impressive clip.

What the fuck was my excuse? Was I really that stupid, unproductive, selfish, fearful?

And not for nothing, I knew the older I got the more invisible I would become. No more invitations to weddings or parties, no one to check in on my health as I climbed into my eighties, no one to tell me how to download the latest technology to stay plugged in to the world. I had visions of a poorly-run, low-income nursing home, where I’d sit in a wheelchair staring at the peeling paint on the walls and dying because no one knew I was there to begin with.

So we had a baby. We got it on the third try. Slay, mama.

I didn’t even have to apologize to those I’d sworn loyalty to League of Childlessness. The overwhelming shock and surprise by all who knew us buoyed the whole experience. There was a ton of “I told you so’s” by family who always said I’d change my mind when I got older. It would’ve been annoying, but it quelled my fears and affirmed this was the right decision. This wave of social support felt like a tsunami compared to the typical tepid reaction to a new job or a new play.

Everyone gets excited about a baby.

Suddenly I got to sing all the songs about how hard it is to be a parent. That chorus is so much louder than child-free tunes. I got to join the sighs and the laughs of motherhood, share too many baby pictures in the group chats.

Did I miss my old life in the city? Sure. But I didn’t need that anymore. I had triple the square footage, parents who could help for at least half the year, and a Costco I could frequent at any time of the day (except Sunday mornings let’s be real) without it becoming a battle royale.

I know my artistry will fully come back when the baby goes to preschool. We can’t justify five days a week daycare, it’s far too expensive, but my mom has agreed to have “Grammy Camp” so I can write and send self-tapes for a couple hours a day. I don’t know what we’ll do once winter comes and my parents leave for Florida. I haven’t wanted to think about it. I hear Lutheran churches have decently affordable day care? I wasn’t planning on teaching the kid about Jesus, but hey, if the price is right…

Oh, god, I almost forgot about my worry about the world imploding! The nice thing is that it probably won’t now. Of course I’m worried for the safety of my child, generally speaking. That’s parenting! But I take Buspar and meditate!

And honestly? We’ve always had hard times as a human race. The world probably will be fine. Statistically speaking, my baby will be fine. And because they’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.

This piece was written in the summer of 2020, but edited this week.

We walk into my favorite coffee shop.

My dad is the only barista working the counter. I didn’t anticipate him clocking in today. You and I are 7th and 8th in line. It’s always busy on a Saturday here, and the line is extra spaced out due Covid, so my dad doesn’t notice us. I’m grateful.

“All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem is playing over the speakers and you start to jump up and down. It’s one of your favorites, but same goes for thousands of other 2000’s indie music fans. This public dancing is wild behavior: you’re typically more of a wall flower. But it’s not a typical day. Or time.

We’ve just come from Randall’s Island, a place I’d never stepped foot on until you drove me there. This morning and afternoon you’re playing hooky from your real life. You always do when we’re together. We enjoyed a giant field to ourselves because it’s Coronavirus Summer and the island is difficult to get to without a car.

You’re on fire, standing in this line with me. I tend to amp you up regardless, but we’re coming off of hours on that field. Endless talking, making out, and trading knowledge about martial arts and exercise. You taught me sticky hands and some capoeira dancing. You tell me your sensei used to call you “bear”, which beyond your stature I never really thought was the most appropriate nickname. You were more like a puppy in my estimation, but maybe that’s because you devour my face and always say “I’m sorry” whenever people hurt you. 

Like a puppy, you can’t stop moving in this queue, vibrating from our joyous physical and emotional tumult. Still 3rd and 4th in line at this point, you lean down and grab my shoulders, pretending to knee me in the stomach, going “Wa-bam!” We’re all wearing masks, but it barely does anything for our anonymity. You’re a silver-haired, lumberjack-built man in his mid-forties and I’m noticeably shorter, younger and pink-haired. I’m suddenly feeling self-conscious you’re doing this play-fighting both in a public space and in the proximity of my dad, though you only know the former is at play. I playfully push you off and lightly say “Quit it!"

My dad and I lock eyes. His eyes move to you. But you don’t know him from Adam.

My dad doesn’t expect me to be covid-consciously-social today. But he’s more surprised to see me with someone he’s never met. I introduce you as my friend, he knows you’re not, and he charges us for coffee. He never makes me pay for coffee when I’m alone, but he keeps to the shop rules when I have company.

You try to pay, which I find embarrassing. So I pay, which I also find embarrassing. 

My dad has a rolodex of mistakes and therefore passes no judgment on me. He feels pity, compassion, maybe frustration towards me. He does, however, pass judgment on you. He can smell your cowardice and shame and denial and euphoria. It’s a cologne he used to wear often. That’s why my mom left him.

Well, after the third time she caught him cheating.

But I don’t want to think about any of that. On this summer day, I want to enjoy my favorite coffee with my new favorite person and bask in the recent memory of our island time, where we were the only people in existence. 

Worrying and regret don’t come up when it feels like the end of the world.

Cover art by Cult Class

She laid back on her lover's bed, 
anticipating an orgasm in the next five minutes. 
In her heart, however, 
she wanted to disassociate to ASMR TikToks and pug videos. 

Her eyes softened towards the ceiling, 
her parts were effectively manipulated to make her hips buck and mouth moan, 
and she thought to herself, 
"Our country is being held hostage by our government and millions of people are going to suffer even more than they already are. Other millions are dying in war across the ocean. Our planet is on fire and billionaires keep tossing on gasoline. On this block alone we're making ends meet while knowing our jobs could be lost - again - at any moment. The political party that should be fighting for human rights only wants to fold to the highest bidder and....Oh -- right --- I need to...!"
and she came. 

Because her lover's sexual expertise can override social existential dread, 
at least for a couple minutes.    

She recommitted herself to the present, to the person she was with. 
They danced the usual dance it takes to leave both parties well-satisfied. 
In the afterglow, she asked her lover if they would brush her hair. 
The lover happily obliged. 

She wondered about when she'd die. 

She asked "Should we order sushi from Silver Rice?"

She assumed one day she'd lose this lover
to logistics
to warring emotional needs
to death
to something unknown. 

She mentioned her upcoming week's workload, 
how it's creating a rift in her intention and execution with her personal projects. 

She enjoyed living between their sheets and their skin
but she despised living in this time. 

Cover photo by Vintage Fantasy

It's not hard to think of you, lover, when I am a shadow on your streets. 
A blur, really. 
Here then gone. 

I have forgotten your scent. 
If we were our dogs, I could smell you on the planters and lamp posts as I conduct my business a block or two from your apartment. 
If it were to waft back to me, how close would you have to be? 
You never wore perfume. 
I've never smelled those notes again,
not since your head was pressed into my chest years ago. 

I look over my shoulder as I make my way through pedestrians, 
scanning for movement that contains your bright colors. 
I will only have to do this for minutes, til I'm tucked away and out of sight. 
I wonder what you scan for, when you find yourself on my territory. 

Imposter syndrome isn't found through the five senses. 

I equally wish to never find you again and to see as you were. 

Do you remember when you'd run to me, bike to me, Uber to me, travel over three subways lines for me? 
Your energy would flood the block 
as you'd grin and fall into my arms, 
exhaling in gratitude to "finally be home". 

As I make my way into the museum or biergarten or restaurant or friend's apartment building in your neighborhood, I wonder how far you are from me. 
How powerful could a wound's intuition be, to sense the presence of its inflictor? 
You are more powerful than most, I think. 
It's possible you sense me through the Germanic-style architecture, the above-ground subway stations, the recreational parks. 

When I am on my way out, I'll think about all the near-misses we must've had in the following years of our separation. 
Were we ever moments away from sensing, 
seconds away from seeing, 
a beat from smelling,
our old lover?

Art by Aykut Aydoğdu

When you work with teenagers
time kicks up like dust. 
You get pebbles in your Converse. 

You see the children play house with one another, 
odes of eternal love and hickeys to match. 
As the resident Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come 
you silence yourself 
resisting warnings and projections
of broken hearts and bloodshot eyes of high school pantomime. 

Knowing these kids
and they are kids
I measure my past with their present. 

I offer my experience like breadcrumbs, 
populating stories with humor and the appropriate amount of cringe. 
I hide the nightmares-come-true that live outside of Typical Adolescent Rituals, 
hoping, perhaps foolishly, there won't ever be a reason to share. 

You begin to see that every teenager
-even the greatest of them-
is
deeply insecure. 

They are
desperate for direction, 
uncertain of the future,
require attention and care, 
and love to posture that 
they don't "want" anything from you
and 
certainly 
don't "need" anything, either. 

Teenagers aren't mistaken for adults
-even the most mature ones-
once an actual adult spends more than thirty minutes with one. 

But opportunistic adults, 
the wolves from my unspoken fairy tales I don't orate to the minors,
smell their "wants" and "needs" 
make champagne and candy promises
and watch them take the bait. 

They sink their teeth in
into their psyche, flesh, or both. 
Suck and slurp until they're chased away. 
The wounds are then stitched or sutured.

Teenagers grow into young adults into whatever I am now. 
Today you'd have to look hard to see where they tore into my skin.
Being on the other side, I know why the wolves hunt. 
It's terribly easy if you're terrible and hungry. 

As they giggle and roll their eyes and quip something equally naive and brilliant, 
I pray I never see a single one with a bloodied bandage, 
signaling me to share my scar and speak my story.