Longing

<p><em>Longing is inextricable from desire pain grief. We can long to return</em></p><p><em>to a past one where our fears preoccupations sorrows feel opaque in</em></p><p><em>comparison to the joy love and ecstasy that make our lives feel whole.</em></p><p><em>The desire for what we cannot have. Or for what never was never</em></p><p><em>existed. For the unfinished the undone a pause in the past.</em></p><p></p><p><em>In these works we long for the opportunity to see the graduation</em></p><p><em>caps that never went up in the air a yearning to be loved again we</em></p><p><em>remember the blood. A response to a job opportunity has catastrophic</em></p><p><em>consequences for a budding flower shop a community is marked after</em></p><p><em>an unspeakable crime a widow finds freedom in unexpected ways</em></p><p><em>a daughter experiences inexplicable pain. We reexamine childhood</em></p><p><em>memories that have instilled shame and revisit mother tongues.</em></p>