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I wasn’t good at sports, like he was, but when it was just the two of us, he liked to play pretend. That, I was good at. Whether we were knights or ninjas or mountain men or astronauts or soldiers in Vietnam, he listened with his whole self — intent, leaning in — to whatever story I was telling.
By Joe WilkinsDecember 2021In a lot of ways the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in 1861 found its modern parallel on January 6, 2021.
By Jeff WeissDecember 2021The wolf has traveled a thousand miles in two months. A director of a wolf-advocacy group said his arrival here is “something akin to the [first] moonwalk.”
By Teddy MackerNovember 2021I add thirty-eight points to Dad’s side of the scorecard. “You’re kicking my ass,” I say. He gathers the cards and begins to shuffle, his hands clumsy, the cards slipping out onto the table. “Let me,” I say, but he says he can do it, that it’s his turn.
By Emily RinkemaNovember 2021Today in heaven / my father turned 105. / Finally working steady daylight, / he’s got it knocked: / eight to four, / double time and a half, / no asbestos, / no shoveling slag / on the open hearth, / no boss, / thirteen weeks vacation annually, / kingdom come. / The union up here takes zero shit.
By Joseph BathantiNovember 2021I put aside the previous rejections and try again. This time I don’t mess around with coffee. I don’t want anything that might allow her a graceful out or result in a request to be friends. I have friends. I ask her on a dinner date.
By Sandra Gail LambertNovember 2021It’s dark and I don’t feel / at all well and my mother / will soon arrive to take me / home and the overripe aroma / of the hedges with the tiny / white flowers is making me / want to throw up but I’m / not alone because a fellow / counselor-in-training, / my first friend who is a boy, / has left the camp sleepover / to wait with me
By Michele HermanNovember 2021Some nights, when medication and meditation have failed to put me to sleep, I think of the relatives who abandoned my family to become white people.
By Caille MillnerNovember 2021November 2021Wounding and healing are not opposites. They’re part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. . . . I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of.
Rachel Naomi Remen
A new feature in the magazine, A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
November 2021Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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