One: The bedroom door slams shut. My body catapults forward. I’m sitting up in bed — chest heaving like an abused bagpipe. But there is no air entering my body. Breathing is suddenly a foreign language. I try to scream for help. My mouth spreads into a gaping hole, but…

An evolving series of lessons — On July 27th, 2011, I had my last drink. (Well, kinda. But that’s what this story is about. Let’s stick with 2011 for now.) It was also the day that I went into the hospital due to alcohol. For the two weeks prior to the hospital, I had been riding…

It’s great…but not really — Today is day fourteen. An official two weeks where I have not had any alcohol on any day. And I feel amazing. Which is an absolute and egregious lie. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve gotten stronger each of the fourteen days. My memory is slowly coming back. Coordination issues are…

Misinterpreting anxiety as spirituality The You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies is a permanent exhibit in the Phoenix Art Museum, also known as The Firefly Room. Thousands of LED lights hang from the ceiling, with mirrors on all four of its surfaces. Though it is…

Graduate to antiracist actions — My first day of college presented an opportunity to graduate with more than just a degree. I was attending the welcome banquet for a scholarship program that had accepted me. As an Arizona boy new to southern California’s Azusa Pacific University, the buffet of Mexican food from the local restaurant…

Portrait of my time in a mental health hospital — There is one way in and one way out of the psych ward. A yellow line is drawn on the worn tile floor, twenty feet inside the doors that slide open when the doctor swipes his identification card across a panel. I am somehow aware that once I cross this…

A long US history of white men practicing and perfecting the message of diversity-as-threat and identity politics — Let’s get straight to the point: NO ONE plucks the strings of identity politics more than white men — both now and from the earliest days of forming the US nation. Today, I respond to one white man in particular: Mike Jankanish, a high school teacher and occasional op-ed contributor…

Anti-racism depends on brutal honesty with our moral history — I come from a largely Christian family, raised in a modern Protestant church, having become a “born again” Christian at age fifteen. I have also identified as white my entire life — and, more influentially, I have been easily identified by others as white. From my early years and into…

A glimpse into one psychotic episode — alcohol withdrawal and hallucinations — The front door to the apartment keeps slowly creaking open and closed. I’m aware it’s not real, but I continue propping myself up in bed to check that no intruder has entered. My step-dad, Bill, sleeps on the floor, a few feet from my bed — here to help if…