This time last year I called the cops on my husband. I can’t completely remember the path that led to that, not the medium-term path. Long-term, he’d been prone to violent, scary fits of temper and self-harm on and off for years. Short-term, I’d gone to bed on an evening when going to bed looked like—was meant to look like—an act of war.
I set out to write about the psycho-geographical valence of Laramie. That term was my coinage and I was proud of it. The emotional weight of coming to this haunted, haunting place to study. Weather-torn fences staggering out into the bleak windswept stretches of the prairie, the contemplative hush of the snowfall, the blue sky, the burning stars. Place myself in that landscape and the reflection of that landscape in me. The landscape of Laramie…
This week was the full feelings buffet. Remember, you can always come back for more:
Celeste Ng called How to Make Yogurt in Manila by Grace Talusan ‘beautiful and moving’ (on the Twitter machine) so you don’t have to take our word for its awesomeness.
“Things That Are Meant To Make You Feel Safe And Comfortable In A Psych Ward That Just Make You Feel Crazier.” Episode by Naadeyah Haseeb will tear
“Keep your hands to yourself,” I say to Alma, one of the pre-K students at my school. Alma narrows her eyes and gives me a look that says Go to hell. She is holding a sharpened pencil, readying it to poke another student. “I'm watching you. Put it away.” I see my former student, Claudia, running from the sidewalk into the street. Why aren't the teachers stopping her? I look around for the music teacher who usually monitors…
On a Saturday morning in September, 2010, my younger brother Austin took out a handgun I hadn't known he owned, told his wife to call the police, and gave her a special password with which to identify him. "They're coming for me," he said, "but I'll keep you safe." At least, that's the story his wife told us at the time. From there, details get a bit hazy, but the facts are these: my brother…
The first time I went to Parliament, I was nine, a moon-faced, chubby tourist in a little purple wheelchair. I don’t remember much about that tour, except in flashes: my awe at its baroque grandeur. The theatricality of the whole thing, with the historical characters in costume and rehearsed tours. My dad yelling at security when they wouldn’t let him push my chair up the stairs, for fear it would get the carpets
In Krav Maga, you learn the correct fighting stance first. It is imperative to have a strong base. Tuck your chin, space out your hands in front of your face, close but not too close to your cheeks or to each other, your wrists and fingers loose, relaxed but prepared to clench at any moment. Place your feet on the ground about shoulder-width apart, gently but firmly, one foot forward and one back;
Caroline says, as she gets up off the floor, “Why is it that you beat me? It isn’t any fun.” -Lou Reed
Last night I dreamt I was with my ex’s girlfriend, and I was trying to explain it all to her. She was tiny, so tiny I could pick her up, Pietà-style, one of my arms under her back and the other under her knees. As I carried her around, I
Trymaine Lee's interview with the closest eyewitness to the shooting of Michael Brown at MSNBC is worth reading in its entirety: “I could see the muscles in his forearm,” Johnson said. “Mike was trying to get away from being choked.” “They’re not wrestling so much as his arm went from his throat to now clenched on his shirt,” Johnson explained of the scene between Brown and the officer. “It’s like tug of war. He’s…
The summer we lost the dog was the summer that we lost Joey. It seems somewhat misleading, even crude to say that we lost the dog because to lose something implies that you noticed when it was gone and to say that I lost Joey would be simplification, an attempt to beautify a carrion. We lost the dog that summer because my father was tired of looking out for another life. We lost Joey because…
It’s a really weird story. I was beaten. Not like—well yes, like beaten. With a tire iron. I KNOW, RIGHT. I knew him, the guy who beat me. It wasn’t just some random person who ran in and smacked me around at 4 am. I live on the eighth floor. No, I was just noodling on my essay, and this guy comes in—I know him, kind of, not biblically, he’s this small boy who comes…
