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A chocolate sundae, a perfect joint, a freed man’s first meal
By Our ReadersFebruary 2016— from “For This” | It is for this / we have been torn / and mended / and torn again.
By Pat SchneiderJanuary 2016Though we aren’t blasé about death, we are accustomed to it. We know it will happen. When a person is hospitalized, it means his or her condition could turn serious, fast. A simple case of pneumonia could result in a whole-body infection that spirals and becomes fatal. A patient receiving a new hip could develop a blood clot that clogs his lungs. A heart-failure patient could suffer an arrhythmia. But hospital deaths are rarely as terrible as John’s.
By JoDean NicoletteJanuary 2016That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful.April 2012Rumi
Because it’s embarrassing how many poems you’ve written / about killing yourself.
By Chris BurskOctober 2015It was snowing that morning as we left for church, the white sky spitting flakes, enough to dust the car but not enough to cover the dirty snow at the side of the road, the bare patches of dead lawn. It was January in Ames, Iowa, when snow no longer has its fluffy Christmas novelty and simply becomes another cold, hard fact of life.
By Kelly Grey CarlisleFebruary 2015The night Cole had followed my orders, I couldn’t believe it had worked: my taking the rifle, my telling him no. But I hadn’t discovered a bold, brave part of myself. It was nothing like that. What I’d discovered was that I could pretend to be someone I was not, and that people could be fooled by this, and that this could save my life.
By Heather SellersFebruary 2015I’d come to Las Vegas to dry out, to cook for a casino, to gamble, and to write a novel. The gambling part had turned out well, but the viciousness, shallowness, and vulgarity of the city had worn me down. I was hankering to go someplace peaceful and friendly and slow. And I was secretly, as always, praying for a metamorphosis from unpublished writer to respected author.
By Poe BallantineNovember 2014In the old house I could see all the way up Pearsal Avenue / Until the houses and trees disappeared / Into the mud of memory. I stood at my window / And watched the comings and goings of cars, buses, men, / And especially the kid who lived next to the Hannigans.
By James ValvisAugust 2014The seizure raged for another twenty minutes. As I leaned on the edge of the hospital bed next to Calvin, I wished I could feel his pain for him. The emergency medications appeared to have failed my boy. His fingers, toes, and lips were the color of plums, his oxygen-deprived skin ashen.
By Christy ShakeAugust 2014Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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