In any serious picture of me, I am not comfortable enough to look directly into the lens. I don’t know if I will ever be.
Promiti Islam on queerness, Bengali-American identity, and the complexities of family acceptance,
I wondered: Who was I when I first formed this friendship?
I didn’t want it to make sense—to send my children away for who knows how long—but I did need them to survive. I needed to survive.
Distance, though it may be physically distancing, need not make a couple grow distant.
For a decade I’d tricked myself into believing I was happily married, never thinking there could come a time when the trick no longer worked.
I discovered breakdancing in that VHS time capsule, and that was as close as I’d ever get to a culture that did not exist where I lived.
Nora Feely on loss during the pandemic, chosen families, and the small but devastating things 2020 took away.
I know my neighbors now a little bit better than before.
I was already in love with all my friends. But in my newfound singleness, I was falling in love with them more deeply.