Darkness

In “Building Girls” the darkness is one’s inability to express oneself, especially in love. One of Aisha’s tenants, Madame Manaal, shuttered up windows after her husband and son’s deaths. The narrator describes visiting her, and “in contrast with the brightness of the street, the blackness that cloaked her greeted me like a chasm on the other side of the doorframe” (18). Manaal physically and emotionally closed herself, and Aisha feels as if this could be her fate.

Doorknob

The doorknob symbolizes a threshold into the new in “Lost in Freakin’ Yonkers.” Aida’s father wrote her a note that if she keeps the baby, she is disowned from the family. Aida returns to her house; perhaps her physical presence could sway her father’s mind. When Aida approaches the doorknob to her house, she wonders, “how many times had I turned it to leave...