We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Instead of bending spoons with our thoughts, we broke / popsicle sticks with our fists. We didn’t have beards yet, / so we slathered our faces in mayo and shaved / with butter knives. This was called tasting the world / with our skin, and this was called happiness times ten.
By Lance LarsenOctober 2024Teenage parties, lost treasures, wartime bomb shelters
By Our ReadersOctober 2024The mountain in winter enables the kind of sleep that restores, heals, allows brains to solve problems. The days have more than enough darkness to crawl inside.
By Todd DavisOctober 2024Missed calls, misheard lyrics, mistaken identities
By Our ReadersSeptember 2024I’d thought the transcripts would help me write a letter to the parole board, but when I opened them, I saw a section of my own testimony at Maynard’s trial, and that was that. My head filled with hissing static; my heart raced.
By Erin McReynoldsSeptember 2024If you walk the stations of the cross, most tour guides / will politely point out the spot where they think Jesus / may have fallen or the spot where / he may have met his mother.
By Luisa MuradyanSeptember 2024August 2024The body is a sacred garment. It’s your first and your last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor, and with joy and with fear as well. But always, though, with blessing.
Martha Graham
Sonja wakes to a stranger’s voice in the boat with her. A man’s voice. A panicked moment passes before she realizes that it’s coming over the radio and not from inside the cabin. “Aidez-moi,” the man says. “Help. Ayúdame. Please.” His call cuts in and out between the fuzz of the handheld VHF’s granular static.
By Kirsten Sundberg LunstrumAugust 2024We started swerving across the double line, back and forth, up hills where the headlights beamed into the canopy of the forest, leaving a pocket of darkness below, an open mouth from which an oncoming car could spit forth at any moment. I clutched the driver’s seat in front of me, bracing for impact. But each time, the car settled back onto the road, and we sped downhill again. And then there was nothing in the windshield but trees.
By Cynthia Marie HoffmanAugust 2024Listening to parents who are newly grieving, I notice the places where their voices break. It is not when they describe the concrete details of suffering and lifeless bodies; it is in the emptiness that follows.
By Michelle DuBarryAugust 2024Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today