MANDORLA was published in The Literary Bohemian.

My eyes, once quick with observation, slip down inside my belly and I look around with a hunger for comforts, familiar voices, quiet nights, your arm a belt around my naked waist. Here, I’m falling and I careen around these streets with a ticker tape heart sliced up into thin ribbons that flutter away, one by one, against the ochre walls.

Author’s Note: I wrote this creative nonfiction flash in Siena, Italy, where I discovered I was a “strangieri” in the land, my mixed-race relationship, and myself.