[Image description: a Palestinian woman in red hijab plants an olive tree.]

Sitti’s food is delicious, but her hands pay the price. My father complains that he suffers too. “Mama, stop cooking,” he whines. “I don’t have time to drive you to the hospital.”

Sitti laughs. “I have my hospital right here,” she says, shaking the box of band-aids she keeps by the stove.

The rest of Sitti’s Scars, a flash fiction piece, is available at the Baltimore Review.  I’m thrilled to be included among some incredible writers.

The subway. The el. The train. Chicagoans have so many words for our public transportation system. Most of those words are four letters long and hurled at bus drivers pulling away from the curb a moment too soon. Complaining about the Chicago Transit Authority is the city’s favorite pastime—surpassing our love of back porch cookouts, more constant than the corruption of our politicians, deeper than our sports rivalries. I don’t complain, though. For me, the crush of people, the delays, and the stench are a low price to pay for being able to go anywhere. I don’t drive. I never have and I have a seizure condition which ensures that I never will, so I moved to Chicago, where you can live like a person even without a car. When I arrived, the train doors opened for me.     

I wrote Please Stand Clear of the Doors, published by Slag Glass City, and I’ll be reading it out loud on at Essay Fiesta Puts On Metaphorical Fireworks Show on July 17th! You’ll want to come and listen to me subtly change things while I read, because I always do.

This story is my love letter to Chicago.  I wrote it on a damp day in Columbus, Ohio. It’s also about how painful and awkward it is to be gender nonconforming on public transportation.  I hope you enjoy it.

[Image description: View of the train tracks in the Chicago Loop.  Photo by Tony Webster from Portland, Oregon, United States (Chicago El) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons]

I’m pumped to present my paper “I May Be Crazy but that Don’t Make Me Wrong: Marsha P. Johnson’s Life and Activism through the Lens of Ableist Trans-misogynoir” at Ohio State University’s Queer Places, Practices, and Lives III conference. I’m also excited to be rocking my new “too cute to be binary t-shirt” and beyond thrilled to get to listen to a keynote from Miss Major Griffin-Gracie. [Image description: me, a white person with a goofy grin in a grey t-shirt with the text “too cute to be binary” and a blue and green sports coat.]

Over the last year, I’ve been writing about Palestine again. The first of these stories just came out today!

I’d stopped writing about Palestine after completing my graphic novel script. Writing that graphic novel helped me to deal with my ongoing trauma and transition back to living in the US. I started again because I realized that healing needed to continue.

Unlike my previous writing, in which I wrote to inform and kept the focus off myself, this time I decide to include myself and my feelings. I needed to write about the stories and feelings that I have become stuck in my mind.

You started it. Last Thursday.

Under the stairway next to the cafeteria door, there was a spot where the cameras don’t reach. The security guard was probably staring at a freshmen girl’s butt. You must have slipped right past him.

I noticed it on my way to the bathroom. When I walked by, the security guard sneered. His nose twitched like he caught a whiff of dog poo. That’s what the guards do instead of ogling me. I wear the same uniform as all the girls, but on me a white polo and khakis look like guy’s clothing. I tried to sway my hips and take small steps. Sometimes girling it up helps me blend in. Then you made me forget everything. Behind the security guard, on the wall under the staircase, I saw what you did. In purple ink, you wrote “R.I.P. Prince.”

Read the rest of Purple Pen, a fictional story about falling in love, speaking up, and the purple power of Prince, in Lunch Ticket!

The amazing header image was created by the incredible Danielle Tanimura.  Check out the rest of her work.