“under house lights you move / through hallways backstage like it’s a sin / to inhabit your own skin”

“Sick, in these days, means alone.”

Bonnie Chau reflects on being Asian-American, the ideas and motivations of representation and visibility, the Amanda Gorman translation debate, and translating out of whiteness.

I’m no good at masturbating. For me, sex has always been about two, of the hunt or being hunted, of being desired, of falling headfirst into the abyss of the other.

On the train back to Grand Central, the city itself did not feel enough for me. I longed for the presence of another human being—a person I can touch, feel, and shelter with—to save me from the coming isolation of the second wave.

For Mary South, nurturing is just another way for people to connect, an effort her characters rarely accomplish. These stories focus so intently on the space between people that one could forget anyone ever succeeds in uniting.