These are our sins and how did we ever get here without them

For the hyphenated

It was like he used all his compassion on strangers and ran out by the time he came home.

It’s a sad thing when you map the borders of a friendship and find it’s a narrower country than expected.

“No offense, cousin, but even though you are from here, you are also not. I know you want to help, but you have only recently learned about any of this. You are not going to be the one to save us.”

“You want me to come with you?” he asks, like he doesn’t understand why I’m upset. And that’s a big part of the problem. He doesn’t. He can’t.

It strikes me that I cannot claim this country’s serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history. To say that any aspect of it is part of me is to say that all of it is part of me.

We can only handle so much truth at any given moment,

Surely the air your lungs first breathe matters. The language your ears first hear. The foods your nose first smells and your tongue first tastes. The soil you first crawl upon.