Essays on memory, identity, and the unspoken parts of being human.
I know Maria’s coffee maker is broken and her deepest fears of dying alone, yet I’ve never heard her voice. A profound reflection on how social media affects relationships, creating an unsettling reality where we are intimately connected to strangers while becoming strangers to the people sitting right next to us
The Birthday Behind the Screen I watched my son blow out his candles through my phone screen. Not with my eyes—with the camera. I held the device steady, making sure the angle was right, the lighting good, his face centered in the frame. I saw him take that deep breath, saw his cheeks puff out,
The Distance Between Hearts and Likes Sarah liked my post at 11:47 PM. I know this because I checked. Three times. It wasn’t anything important—just a photo of the sunset from my apartment window. But Sarah had liked it within minutes, the way she always did. The way she had done for three years now,
My Twitter bio says “thought leader.” In person, I apologize while ordering coffee. “Can I get a latte? Sorry. Medium? If that’s okay. Sorry.” The barista stared. I’d just apologized twice for ordering coffee. Online, I’m articulate. Post threads about technology, culture, society. Thousands of followers. People call me insightful. Offline, I can barely make
I crafted the perfect caption for twenty minutes. Three people liked it. Two were relatives. One was a bot. The revelation arrives slowly, then suddenly: the vast audience I’ve been performing for exists mostly in my imagination. All that careful content curation. Strategic posting times. Anxiety about others’ opinions. Directed toward people who scroll past
Five hundred and thirty-seven people saw my breakfast this morning. Avocado toast, perfectly plated. Golden morning light through the window. Caption about grateful mornings and fresh starts. Twenty-three likes within the first hour. What they didn’t see: I’d been awake since 3 AM, crying in the bathroom so my wife wouldn’t hear. The toast sat
Happy’s been waiting fifteen years. Not with ultimatums. She just waits. While I figure out that nodding at your phone isn’t the same as listening. I don’t think that’s what she meant to do. Arash is eleven. Nine of those years he’s been saying “Baba, look at this.” Last month I looked. A beetle.
I have been singing “hold me closer, Tony Danza” for two decades. I had never heard of Tony Danza. The name meant nothing. Yet whenever that Elton John song came on—car, store, party—I sang those words.
You’re filling out a scholarship application. The family-income section stops you cold. Your parents earn too much for aid, yet not enough to cover tuition without sacrifice. As a result, the numbers place you in an awkward middle—excluded from help, yet still in need. This uneasy middle is one face of unearned privilege—the kind that
I woke Happy. Told her to go to bed. I’ll stay through the night. Every time his breath paused, mine paused too. I watched him.
I’ve been avoiding the conversation with Happy for three months now. The five-year plan. Where we’re going. What we want. The kind of talk that could change everything. Too important to approach.
This isn’t the loneliness of being physically alone—that’s clean, explicable. This is the loneliness of being emotionally alone while physically surrounded. The loneliness comes from knowing that if they knew everything, they might stop loving you.
“These words found the feelings I couldn’t name.”
“Like finding letters I wrote to myself but never sent.”
“Writing that makes you stop and remember what it means to be alive.”
Curated insights, thoughtfully delivered. No clutter.
