Last year, after a particularly wrenching death within the community, a dear friend sent me this excerpt from the epilogue of Mary Lou Kownacki’s Monasteries of the Heart. See, I used to believe that with enough care, with enough acceptance, the victims of poverty, of mental illness, would become whole, would lead meaningful lives. But that…

I recently read a missive denigrating a race that listed, among its complaints, the “urban” section of trail and — more specifically — the presence of people experiencing homelessness within that section. As a runner, I understand. You’re on your favorite trail, or participating in an organized event and you…

: My eggs this morning looked like the moon’s surface. : You’ve been gone for 157,680,000 seconds, give or take. : After my father delivered the news, he pocket-dialed me. I saved the message and still listen to it, though most of what I could hear was only breath. …

In a recent interview with Krista Tippett, Collette Pichon Battle spoke of our collective moral obligation to support our community’s most vulnerable members, and the collapse of the systems that are — theoretically — designed to provide that support. She said: “So the structures and the laws of our country…

I don’t want to write anymore. Instead, I want to draw tiny hearts everywhere, doodle daisies on the arms of people I meet so I can show them something can grow here The woman who waits weekly at the pantry who revealed she lives in an office building with her…

What is the American Dream, exactly? What wretched refuse of what teeming shores of what shithole countries still look to our shores, our own wretched refuse, and aspire? What hallucination, what hologram, what choking regurgitation or recapitulation still serves in slumber or sentience? …

I probably don’t have anything new to say to you. I bet I don’t have anything to say that will change your mind. I suppose neither is the point of this. Truth told, I’ve got some shit to say, and I’m gonna say it. I had a COVID scare this…

I keep a list on my phone of people I’ve loved who have died. At my work, we call these people “neighbors” because they literally are. Our neighbors. …

On the days I don’t write poetry My pen skids instead across a check; court fees covered, eviction evaded I lock eyes with my best friend over her croissant and we explore practical, necessary questions, like what kind of container can catch all the tears that fall from “this is…