I say: “Un pain aux raisins, s’il te plaît,” my voice still full of sleep, my mouth dry and my eyes sticky. When he wakes us up for school our father always says that we smell of sleep and I don’t understand what that means. From their bedroom that is just next to mine I hear my sisters saying “Pain au chocolat.”…

In French, you cannot say: “I am heartbroken.” We say: “I have a broken heart. J’ai le cœur brisé.” It is something that you have, not something that you are.

I remember learning about how you can invent your own adjectives in English. He is a brown-eyed boy. In French…

If I go first
Oh, you know it is true
The world will end
For me baby, not you

If I go first
Oh, I will still be here
Oh, you will hear
My laughter dangle from trees

The towels are dirty.
They smell of sweat and humidity
And pieces of skin that have accumulated in the fabric.
They smell that smell I haven’t smelled in years.
They smell of him never washing them.
They smell of him thinking it is because he is poor.
They smell of my own disgust and my guilt
For being…

I need to start writing in English. More specifically, I need to start creative writing in English. I need to because being a writer is an incredibly long and increasingly lonely activity, and I feel like…