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I hug her back, but not too tight. I’m afraid I might break her, that her collarbone will fracture, that her ribs will crack, that I will crush her with my need to put her back together again.
By Jaquira DíazAugust 2014An unexpected harvest, a sympathetic ear, a compromising position
By Our ReadersAugust 2014A doll named Marla, Beech-Nut gum, fireworks at midnight
By Our ReadersJuly 2014In the twelve years since you died, I moved eleven times and saw five therapists. I hiked in the Grand Canyon, backpacked through Europe, and drank wine in the high, open window of a Montreal hostel. I took a train alone from Toronto to Vancouver, sleeping upright in my seat for three nights. I graduated from college. I fell in love. I hung your portrait above my desk.
By Laura Maylene WalterMay 2014Every Friday night when I was twelve, I’d watch my cousin Derrick, fourteen, get ready to go out with a girl or to a junior-high-school dance. He’d take thick dabs of a hair grease called Blue Magic and rub it between the palms of his hands.
By J.B. McCrayApril 2014A birthday cake, a plastic bag marked “liver,” a lovely one-room cement house
By Our ReadersApril 2014It is not true that every son / and father come to this / the rough bass of your voice / singing the endless tune
By Richard LehnertApril 2014A potted nandina shrub, an antique makeup compact, a light-blue cotton dress with white embroidery
By Our ReadersFebruary 2014I picture him standing in the church superintendent’s office, / the grim man threatening to fire my father from his pastorship / in the small town of Live Oak if he continued to attend / the interdenominational prayer group that spoke in tongues.
By Dane CervineFebruary 2014In rugby I find a clan of women who braid their hair tight to their scalps, who have tattoos and girlfriends and are fiercely loyal. They are my comrades on the field. They risk injury for me, and I do the same for them. Since women’s rugby is an underfunded club sport, we fight for field space, wake up early, play on the rocky public fields of Oakland.
By Rose WhitmoreFebruary 2014Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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