The saddle of the purple loaner bike squeaks when I pedal, and the wicker basket hangs from the handlebars with zip ties—if I turn too quickly, it slides around and attacks my knees. It’s a 20-minute ride to Kastrup Søbad from the AirBnB in Christianshavn.

For the meringue of my early life:

4 large free-range egg whites  (There were five free-range eggs in the nucleus recipe; the younger atom I.)

I show up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a MoMa hat. “Oh fuck,” I text my friend. “And?” she replies. This is only embarrassing in a self-imposed, insular way. No one actually cares.

Where’s New Haven?

On the walk from Gray Matter to The Graduate, and past the couple on the steps singing a light-hearted jingle about Adderall, we overhear an old man asking, “Where’s New Haven?”

To Know Everything (on the Camino de Santiago): A Story of Connection

We sit quietly, the stone wall cool, the chapel shadow leaning left in front of us. We eat around the dark bruises in the white flesh. You take the pit out of your nectarine and place it between us, like an offering to the God we mock.

Redheaded Angel

I stare at the message. It says: Doofus Howser just walked in…
In my hyper-focused, hypervigilant state, this antithetical autocorrect strikes me as hilariously funny.

The Duality of Homes

My mother throws the casserole in the oven after adding expiring ingredients and vegetables to the beat of raucous drums playing in the background. When the casserole finishes cooking, we all grab plates and serve ourselves. Sitting in the living room with the television playing a crude adult animated series, we eat.

Scene(s) from a Chain Restaurant in Papillion, Nebraska

I’d balance my feelings when openly flirting with the girl I’d pined after my entire junior year, while secretly hoping the hot male lifeguard I worked with would show up and notice me, catching adrenaline as I negotiated who I was in public with what I longed for in private.

The Ritual of Killing the Crab

I watched as bubbles rose form the submerged fruit, spilling out in columns. She tore the thing apart with her fingers, familiar and soft to me, and the cracking red skin echoed in our chipped kitchen.

The People Who Live Here

Beauty pulls him into a brand new place, one that does not require memory. This might be at the heart of beauty: it doesn’t require you to remember; it doesn’t even require you to be you.

The Burnt Plane

I crawled into the space behind him and sat on the wet grass. The last time I’d seen this plane was in the newspaper photo my mom had shown me, its black tail smoking and sticking straight up out of the corn field where Mr. Murphy had been crop-dusting.