“Breathe, dawg,” I declare to one hand-length worm. Because I want everyone and everything I love to breathe.
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Fridge stocked with food
Disordered Eating: A Chronological Annotated Bibliography by Mauri Pollard Johnson
At age eight, you watched an episode of Full House about dieting: D.J. eats ice pops and hangs pictures of thin models on her fridge; you know this is to bring awareness to the dangers of extreme dieting, but you keep these as techniques instead.
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Florida Woman by Lenore Myka
The most frequent and famous of the stories sent to me wasn't about a Florida man but a Florida woman. A twenty-something former-model-turned-meth-addict, she'd been responsible for burning down a 3,500-year-old bald cypress tree which, at the time, was considered to be the oldest of its kind and the fifth oldest tree globally.
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Of Pumps and Death by Marcia Aldrich
I hardly dared open my mouth, even to say something innocuous like “Sure, I’m hungry. I could eat dinner.” My words might be analyzed to reveal something knotty, something sinister I didn’t know I felt but really ought to know I felt.
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In the Rearview by Gaye Brown
When you become invisible, as widows do, you welcome opportunities to reappear.
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The Things Not Seen by Krista Lee Hanson
If you are going to stare. If we must be so visible. I want you to know some of the depth, the multitude, the layers of us.
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Joy and Pain, Sunshine and Rain: On Teaching/Reading Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Even when his poems take a darker turn, such as recalling the murder of a friend and colleague, or the bittersweet memory of a childhood crush who has since passed away—there are moments of true grace within these elegies—a slowing down, not in pacing but in memory’s leaps.
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Memory Waltz by Anne Gudger
I imagined my giant Scrabble board and a pile of letter tiles. Extra vowels, too many U’s. Searching. Wanting to make sense of where I was at with my mom and where she was with herself. Do my memories get erased too when she erases hers?
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Dispatches from the Past Present, or Dick Clark's Face by Joe Bonomo
Dick Clark’s face revolving, revolving. This is no fever dream. 20 Years of Rock n’ Roll came packaged with a 'special bonus record,' a cardboard flexi disc emblazoned with, naturally, Clark’s cheery face. The record plays at 33 1/3 rpm, and in an unnerving design bug the spindle hole nailed Clark right between his eyes.
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Broom Rituals by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes
This is how we broom. How we gather dust. A modified ritual of palimpsestic movement. Ceremony in cipher. How we move in the old ways that remain beyond a centuries-long violence.
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Float by Marcia Aldrich
I hardly dared open my mouth, even to say something innocuous like “Sure, I’m hungry. I could eat dinner.” My words might be analyzed to reveal something knotty, something sinister I didn’t know I felt but really ought to know I felt.
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It's Not About the Cat by Kerry Folan
I could not have explained this to my mother, but I was uneasy in those moments. The kitten was so tiny, and caring for her felt so serious. I tried in that first week to come up with the perfect pet name, one that would reflect her too-big coat and her shy meow, but I couldn’t. I think I felt unqualified for the job.
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A Glossary of White Traditions by Michael Bennett
Erasure: Not the 80’s brit-pop band, although we do enjoy “A Little Respect,” (not quite a cover of Aretha’s version, but a nice alternative).
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On Nerves by Karen Babine
AT SOME POINT, all nerves get old. The body cannot regenerate in ways it is accustomed to doing.
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Precious Cargo by Felicia Zamora
A honey bee knows the outcome of haste and yet, she is here, in the light. She lives fully, either always in fear of, or without fear of, death attached to her actions.
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Six Needles by Seth Sawyers
In the bottom of the third, he called back. He was slurring. He was somewhere downtown. He didn’t know where. He was sitting on concrete steps. He could see bushes. Where are you in relation to the big Bank of America building, I asked. He didn’t know. Concrete steps, he kept saying. Bushes.
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Dot by Lia Purpura
Empurpled, if caught in the gloaming, before the beam sharpens against true night and reddens the dot into super clarity.
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How Your Body Works by Jacqueline Ellis
The doctor is a wide, rectangular man with side-parted lank brown hair, black-framed glasses, and an untidy mustache. I sit across from him, next to Dan, on the shiny blue cushion of a dark-wood-colored chair. We are at a fertility clinic because we are trying to conceive a baby and our bodies do not work.
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Of Eagles, Goats, and Space Men by Patrick Madden
Which is to say that you can essay about anything, find some small hook in the overlooked or takenforgranted.
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The Madrid Conversations by Normando Hernàndez Gonzalez with Adam Braver and Molly Gessford, Translated By Cynthia Guardado
The simple act of having your rights to liberty and expression, I would say. The simple act of not being scared to say what you are thinking.
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