Releasing Grief

Following some tumultuous years that included divorce, birth, separation, and her mother’s suicide, Rumpus contributor Gayle Brandeis has written an essay at The Manifest Station where she releases all of that from her body and finally asks the question: How Dare You?

“What is it you want to say to your mom?” she asks, and I want to say something loving and forgiving, but the words that come barreling out of me, straight from my gut, words I had never thought to say before, are “How dare you.”

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Ashley Perez lives, writes, and causes trouble in Los Angeles. She has a strong affinity for tattoos, otters, cat mystery books, and actual cats, but has mixed feelings about pants. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She runs the literary site Arts Collide and does work of all varieties for Women Who Submit, Entropy, Jaded Ibis Press, and Why There Are Words. You can find her on Twitter at @ArtsCollide.

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The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

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