Finding Momentum

He slowly slurps his noo­dles in front of me, and I take him for a pro­fes­sor, an old man with a cer­tain aca­d­e­mic flair. Of course, I have no such rea­son for think­ing so, he could be any old man at this non­de­script, jam-packed hole-in-the-wall restau­rant (the best kind). A sky-blue col­lared shirt hides beneath […]

I’ve been run­ning for the past week or so, despite my grandma’s protests (“you’ll catch a cold”). It used to be eas­ier with the jet lag, when I’d get up at 5am and stare at the wall and catch myself won­der­ing where exactly I was. It’s been gen­er­ally driz­zly here for the past week or so, […]

There was some sort of relief, I decided, in hav­ing set foot in the Occupy camp and find­ing it quiet. Wednes­day, Oak­land was paraded across the global con­scious­ness as national news media dis­played scenes of urban war­fare, with ghostly images of terror-stricken faces sent helter-skelter across the air­waves. Zach showed me the front­page of the […]

If you lean too hard, you’ll go tum­bling out of shad­ows, into the lake. Look, like how the leaves strain against their cuffs in the wind, lean­ing into the gold­en­rod breeze. Look at the lovers lean into each other, rac­ing against sun­down, lips brush­ing freck­les, freck­les brush­ing blades tick­ling toes. There is no time for thinking […]

My nephew, he’s the one in Afghanistan. Some­times I wish I could take his place because if I go… (silence) it doesn’t mat­ter. Lis­ten, I ain’t gonna lie about it. I’m an alco­holic. I don’t drink because I’m sad. I drink because I lii­i­i­i­i­ike drink­ing. I don’t know if I can trust you any­more, man. […]

you have come to us in royal fash­ion, your slip­pers tri­umphantly slap­ping against gravel, your ele­gant fin­gers drum­ming against our win­dow­panes. you keep up a good pace, sir. you glide along­side our car and smile your patented, ring­mas­ter smile. we watch you through one-way tinted glass and air-conditioned cab­ins. you are a curi­ous spec­i­men, a […]

Soon comes spring; and chil­dren will sigh in the rhodo­den­dron light. Forty days, the land groaned under the bur­den of frost and dust. I think to myself that were we to drink the ashen cal­en­dar days, we could not bear the sur­prise of heart-sick laugh­ter, the light­ness best expe­ri­enced with oth­ers; a choked-up kind of […]

We’re all hold­ing hands on the street. Bear on my left, a stocky, griz­zled Fil­ipino dude wear­ing a hard expres­sion under squint­ing eyes. Pan­cho on my right, a wiry black man with a thin face and a black “OAKLAND” beanie with big, gothic let­ter­ing. Cece is between the men, fin­ish­ing a prayer: “And keep us […]

“Come Yil­maz, up your­self and let’s go.” His companion’s voice tugged at him from beyond the ether, and as such he slogged to break through his mind’s haze and drag an eye­lid open. Days of travel through the treach­er­ous Kaçkars had worn them through, and his companion’s ragged appear­ance was sud­denly new to him again, like […]

I’m awak­ened in the morn­ing by a phone call — It’s Mr. Smith, and his car needs a jump. The evening before we had spot­ted him in the park­ing lot; he was still seated in his parked car, eyes closed in rapt con­cen­tra­tion or heavy sleep, we couldn’t tell. “It’s jazz,” he explains later. He […]