Sweetness in the Skin: A Novel

by Ishi Robinson

When you’re an Akisha, you have to unbuild the picture of you that someone’s created in their head.

God-knows-what God-knows-where, the tension is so loud it presses against my ears. Although it’s the sound of her fists against my skin that is the loudest.

he drowned the boy in a barrel of sewage water, holding his head underwater, hooting like a baboon the whole time.

This man is clearly unwell

I don’t need to be ‘better’ than someone else. It’s enough just to be myself – my worth isn’t relative.

What I know is, it won’t matter where I am, or who I’m with, because I have already found the sweetness in my own skin.