CREATIVE NONFICTION BY KHAIA BARANOWSKI
Official Writing Portfolio
PORTFOLIO OF WORK
Past. Present. Future.
I DON'T KNOW HER NAME
January 2020
When snow is old ice, the crystals crunch and grip, they don’t let you slip.
This dream tastes like earl grey without the warmth – it’s the borderline metallic aftertaste – I think it’s the rust on the red truck.
The elongated ‘w’ in the deep snow was wrought to lead me to the barn that’s where I had to go. I knew I was in a rush, not a plant kind of rush, rush hour with no one else participating. The sun, that’s the timer.
LUTANG WITH ANALYSIS
March 2020
Plane thoughts. His eyes felt to him like strong winds on a clear day: noticeable. Not noticeable in the Philippines but noticeable in America. Not the Tropical Noticeable: welcomed and needed wind in incessant heat and humidity. The East Coast American Noticeable: the gust that brings goosebumps in otherwise warm weather. Temperate, American weather infiltrated his tropical thoughts. He thought about the Noticeable Factor of his eyes in a place where they blended in.
HOW CULTURE BECOMES SURREAL THROUGH DAVID FISHER IN SIX FEET UNDER
February 2020
It takes a non-white, non-American culture to expose the ridiculousness and futility of trying to make funerals an event devoid of genuine grief and sadness...
Paco's death and funeral during episode four not only stand as a contrast to white Fisher family grief culture, but also to gay culture and different repressions that operate as part of masculinity.
“Make up a story…For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light.”
Toni Morrison
