A Thin Slice of Anxiety
June 2023
“Self-Care”
“Everyone craves a cure from past pain. Mine comes in the form of a martini glass. I’m sure it represents the birth canal or a mother’s breast.”

 

Palisades Review
June 2023
“Sea Monsters”
“Marine biologists found a sea monster on the coast of China. It was dead and badly decomposed, gargantuan in size.”

 

 

CRAFT
June 2021
“The Ties That Bind”
“On the Big Island of Hawai‘i, Honokaa is the town tourists drive through to get to Waipi‘o Valley.”

 

 

 

Sundog Lit
March 2021
“Brother: An Abecedarian Essay”
“Around Christmas, he’s on the run again.”

 

 

SweetLit
July 2020
“Surfing Lessons”
“Take me to Lahaina, near the break.”

 

 

Los Angeles Review
July 2020
“I Want to Fuck Your Poem”
“Everything you said about poetry, I wanted to get naked with.”

 

 

Hobart
January 15, 2020
“Pink”
“There was a yearning in me for her soft whiteness, which went powdery pink in her most private of places.”

 

 

Columbia Journal
October 2019
“Mother & the Heart Stones”
“I wasn’t going to write about my mother today, except I came across this line by Neem Karoli Baba: “Never put anyone out of your heart.”

 

 

CutBank 89
Spring 2019
“I Am Coming for You”
“I am coming for you. My mother might have said those words the night she went after him—the bearded man, the one she took to her room all those nights.”

 

 

Arts & Letters
December 2018
“Holding onto Fire”
“Mama holds a lit match up to the kitchen curtain. ‘Get out of here!’ she warns the man standing outside our front door, then inches the flame closer to the cloth.”

 

 

The Nervous Breakdown
Mon, May 8, 2018
“Ticking of the Clock”
“Sunday morning, in my twenties, a baby is crying somewhere in the apartment complex.”

 

Atticus Review
Thurs, Jan 18, 2018
“Souvenirs: An Abecedarian Essay”
“Every time I put my feet in those stirrups, it seemed to be for some sex-related emergency, so I ran the ABCs in my head to distract myself from the fallout.”

 

Lunch Ticket Special
Thurs, Oct. 12, 2017
“Out of the Swollen Sea”
“I grew up on the black lava coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i—rough, hostile terrain.

 

The Manifest-Station
Tues, Oct 11, 2016
“Grabbing Pussy, Flipping the Script”
When I first saw your videotape, I might say I was disgusted like thousands of men and women were who watched it. But instead, I was obsessed.

 

 

Women Who Submit
Wed, Feb 10, 2016
“The Art of Submitting to Writing Contests”
Over the years, I learned many lessons about entering writing contests, and chief among them is 1) you don’t have to believe you have the best submission out there to win. Read more lessons.

 

Slippery Elm
December 2015
“Diving Lessons”
I arrive at the indoor pool early, because I’m not a strong swimmer, and I distrust water.

 

Good Housekeeping
Thurs, Aug 27, 2015
“He Was Spying on Me with a Baby Monitor”
My boyfriend was always jealous, but I never imagined it would come to this.

 

Vice
Sun, May 10, 2015
“On Hunger, Loss, and the Void My Mother Left Behind”
How I’ve had trouble eating when loved ones have left me.

 

The Rumpus
Wed, Feb 25, 2015
“Out of the Swollen Sea”
Cheryl Strayed selected this essay as the winner of the 2015 Payton Prize, which honors the memory of Payton James Freeman, taken by SMA.

 

Salon
Tues, Feb 17, 2015
“If you’re not a good girl, I’m going to leave”
I was 6 when my mother disappeared. Now, when men do the same, I assume I’m the one to blame

 

Role Reboot
Friday, Jan 16, 2015
“How The Perfect Red Dress Changed My Love Life”
A fun piece about my long, seemingly unending search for the right red dress and how, when I found her, it ran me out of the wrong man’s arms.

 

 

 

 

Cleaver Magazine
Wed, Sept 10, 2014
“Living Arrangements” 
A lyric essay explores how we live together, the trouble I’ve had living with men, and consequently, my long bouts of living alone in Los Angeles.

 

Thought Catalog
Friday, April 18, 2014
“I broke into my boyfriend’s place to see if he was cheating”
My boyfriend was a flirt, but could he actually be sleeping with someone else?

 

Salon
Wed, April 9, 2014
“When I hit a girl”
Violence was seeded in me early, but I never knew I was capable of rage like this

 

Salon
Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013
“Dating in a push-up bra”
I finally found the solution to a lifetime of shame about my small breasts. But then, it was time for the reveal

 

LA Times
Friday, Nov. 8, 2013
L.A. Affairs
“New single woman looks for a real-world connection”
Newly single, she forgoes online dating to seek a chance, in-person encounter that will lead to love.