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That damned wind! It did whatever it liked. It caressed your hair, your legs, your shoulders, your breasts. I hated it, Kristin! I wanted to kill it.
By V. MyagkovAugust 1989Mary waits at the foot of the stairs. She means to go up the stairs and back to bed but feels too exhausted to make the climb.
By Scott HewittMay 1989I started smoking cigarettes four months ago, out of the blue. I didn’t question myself about it, just figured that a nasty habit had swooped out of the sky and carried me off in its talons.
By Jack UnderhillOctober 1988A left-hand turn; a dew-laced web; a piece of blue paper, folded once
By Our ReadersSeptember 1988You are an essence / in a world of essences.
You burn, / like those around you burn, / with an energy called life.
Life reaches out to life. / Essences sing to each other.
June 1988“Why,” a seventy-six-year-old woman was asked, “are you seeking therapy at your age?” Reflecting both her losses and her hopes, she answered, “Doctor, all I’ve got left is my future.”
Judith Viorst
Necessary Losses
Leaving the chiropractor’s office / driving through the woods along the Cold River / I wanted to write a poem
By Stephen T. ButterfieldJune 1988I didn’t understand what he meant when I first heard John Lennon sing, “No one can harm you. Feel your own pain.” But I knew his words were true, just as a sudden change in the weather is true, just as the alarm clock with its shrill ring is true.
By Sy SafranskyJune 1988Our materialistic culture breeds depression by promoting distorted and unattainable goals for human life. And our commonly held psychological theories make it hard for people to make direct contact with depression as a living experience, by framing it as an objective “mental disorder” to be quickly eliminated.
By John WelwoodJune 1988My mother never held a baby that way. Even when she was feeding my brother, he always somehow rested on her arm, never melted into her body. In New Hampshire, I finally said something to my brother about never having been treated that way when I was a baby. “No,” my brother said. “Our mother would have held us out there with a pair of tongs if she could have.”
By David GuyJune 1988Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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