All of a sudden, we were a grown-up married couple! Like little figures in a doll's house, we sat there dazed, in awe, wishing a chubby little arm would pass through a window and move us around, tell us what to do. We would have given anything for a magnificent child to show us how to be husband and wife.

— Jalina Mhyana

Back at the cottage we explored the topography of my body; twigs in my hair, calves striped red and my skirt smudged in meadow tones. The forest underlined me, accentuated me, illustrated me. I felt alive in that midnight village whose dark places left their signatures on my skin, whose bites still hummed around my wrists. I didn’t notice till then the thousand nettle stings rising like pearls; burning bracelets that my love kissed and rubbed with dock leaves; a folk remedy painting my pulse points green; honorary stalks.

— Jalina Mhyana

Dante Alighieri wrote his first book in the prosimetrum genre – La Vita Nova – in 14th century Florence. Since I’m compiling this collection – my first indie publication – in Florence, just blocks from Dante’s house, and since his book involves a lost love, and ‘A New Life,’ I thought it fitting to emulate this style in my own casual, intuitive fashion. My hope is that the juxtaposition of poems, journal entries, essays and prose will create a story; a memoir in anarchistic vignettes.

— Jalina Mhyana

Every Sunday behind bibles, virgins, soldiers tight against me, longing, and my pelvis rubbing gods'to the big black woman voices. Soldiers tight against me, longing, all that rising, sitting, kneeling to the big black woman voices, spirits warming, tensing, folding, then all that rising, sitting, kneelinglike some kind of dance, a mating, spirits warming, tensing, folding and god went “Shhh” between my thighs –

— Jalina Mhyana

Everything was numbered: the lenses, the painterly sky, the milligrams of my panic pills. I had prescription eyes that allowed me to see better, and prescription panic pills that allowed me to play blind.

— Jalina Mhyana

He’s always been attracted to broken things. He was the kind of boy who talked the bad girls through their problems, who defended them and didn’t take advantage. Furthermore, he was sensitive to his stuffed animals’ feelings, rotating their position on his bed so that a new plush animal would occupy pride of place at his pillow side every night. Soon I became first and foremost on that pillow; princess of the island of misfit toys.

— Jalina Mhyana

I can’t pray or weigh my words right; doomsday is here my friend, but you’re immune. We suffer for you. I’m weaving crowns of sonnets, dreads;a souvenir so you’ll never forget your friends.

— Jalina Mhyana

I can’t remember what I’ve done with my lingerie. I look in the containers under my bed, as if my sexual self has been relegated to the wrong side of the mattress. Furthermore, I imagine my husband’s sexuality down there too, our shadow selves making love deep in our unconscious as we cuddle above the mattress as brother and sister.

— Jalina Mhyana

I cut our paper dinner with a pair of scissors borrowed from the front desk of the hotel. I cooked with a spice rack box of crayons – sixteen colors. Furthermore, I seasoned the pumpkin pie with orange crayon, and basted the turkey's crisp skin in brown. Furthermore, I was remorseless with my sketchbook abattoir, playing the part of carnivore just as surely as I was play-acting the role of wife. Furthermore, I may as well have been a wax figure in a dollhouse eating the wax-scented food.

— Jalina Mhyana

I dreamed in night vision; white flowers of nocturnal gun fire – day residue shot to hell. If I held my dreams to a windowsill, sun would sieve through my screams.

— Jalina Mhyana