A couple of months ago I showed my mom an essay that I had written for class entitled The White Male Minority. In it I wrote about standing out as a white person in India. I then compared this to growing up in one of the few white families in a poor black neighborhood. I sat slouched on a soft red reading chair in the back of the library while my mom read the essay on the nearest computer. I tried to seem unaware of what was going on around me, but the truth was that I was watching her closely [View Full Entry]

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There is a little boy with straight hair as blond as the sun bleached sand alone in the center of a small, tunnel-like backyard. The faint dusk light sends his shadow arching along the ground behind him. He bends down to the ground and scoops up a muddy gray baseball with the oversized glove his father gave him for Christmas. He stands slowly, tiredly, and faces the black trampoline pitch-back. It glares back at him from the shadows. A white strike zone was once painted onto it but now, after years of abuse, only faint splashes of paint dot the black [View Full Entry]

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A pale light seeped into the cramped bedroom from under the door. There was just enough light for John to see Patricia's pale, drawn face, if he were to have looked. But John didn't look. John stood stiffly in the middle of the room, hands on the back of his desk chair, staring out the window into the blackness. "What are we going to do now?" he asked. After a moment, Patricia, nearly hidden beneath the comforter said, "I don't know. I don't want this to happen any more than you do." John turned around slowly and stood facing the bed. [View Full Entry]

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I sat on the old stone wall that jutted out from the changing room and watched the tall guy lifeguard with hair that was longer in the front than in the back scoop leaves out of the tranquil pool. Over to the right, past the chain linked fence and cart path, beyond the swaying rushes, was the Hudson River. From my vantage point I could even see a tiny section of the Tappan Zee Bridge through the low branches of the surrounding forest. That spot under the eaves of the stone changing room was the only place where I could both [View Full Entry]

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This is a Love Marriage, not an Arranged Marriage I spent my junior year abroad in the Indian city of Madurai, located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Whereas in America my dirty blond hair and unspectacular looks often made me feel unseen, in India I stood out. Every time I walked down a crowded road children and adults alike would stop and stare. I was an outsider; no matter how much I tried to fit in, I was a “Vellicari,” a rich white man. In Madurai, I learned Tamil, took Indian cooking lessons, and prayed to Indian Gods [View Full Entry]

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Empty Truth "But I'm still interested in sex," Raj replied, averting his eyes. "Sex is submitting to your desires,” Adam told him. At some point you are going to have to decide whether you want to be governed by your desires or whether you are going to overcome them." Adam spoke slowly and severely, as if analyzing his words, while still in the thought process, for any negative influences. Adam lowered his voice, conscious of the other students who all appeared to be asleep in the van. He sat against the back window next to Raj. Emily and Laura had [View Full Entry]

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“You start out every sentence with ‘yo’”, Jane said half joking, half appalled. “I don’t know how you expect anyone to take you seriously.” “I don’t know, it’s natural,” I defended. “It’s not like this is a classroom or anything.” Jane and I were lying in the grass outside of a towering cement building on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Madison. We were out on lunch from the Tamil classes we were taking to prepare us for our upcoming year abroad in India. Although we were both white, upper class Americans, somehow we were different. I didn’t get any of [View Full Entry]

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"If you do not suffer now, you will suffer the rest of your life," David hissed in my ear as I bent painfully backwards as far as my body would allow. David, the Bikram yoga instructor had been transformed the second we entered into the one hundred and twenty degree room. Outside he had been shy and unassuming, and with just about as much presence as pounds on his body. There seemed to be very few of either. Pain coursed through my lower back and knifed its way down to my upper legs. This guy is crazy, I thought to myself. [View Full Entry]

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A Worthy Sacrifice "Fuck you and your fucking God damned religion", the man, now fully through the gaping front door, screamed. Behind the anger, barely noticeable, he stifled a sob. He grabbed the door handle and, transferring his rage, slammed the door. The warm yellow light from inside evaporated. Howls from worried neighborhood dogs rose instantly, disrupting the deep summer night stillness. The young man, long black hair tattered from sweat, turned to the street, took two steps across the sidewalk, but stopped suddenly. He turned, bent over and, now standing with rock in hand, looked up at the lit second [View Full Entry]

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This is an essay about elevators. I feel like we all get kind of uneasy in them. Here I explore why. What do you think? All critque is not only weclomes but solicited. You enter the hotel lobby. Set into the back wall, the grey doors of an elevator sit solemnly. Four people stand facing the doors as if looking at an altar. You walk up to them. Upon hearing your advancing footsteps, a dark haired woman of about forty turns towards you just enough to look you up and down without making eye contact. You look back at her. Having [View Full Entry]

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