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Essays

168 posts
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  • Essays
  • Mental Health Awareness

Getting Through It & Charting the Edges

  • Anna Held
  • May 2, 2022
Welcome to our themed "issue" for Mental Health Awareness Month.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Waypoint Transition

  • Jo Unruh
  • April 26, 2022
I want to know more of what it is like to feel lost and not always have someone there to tell me how to find my way. Or, to tell me my way.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Honey

  • Amanda Oliver
  • April 19, 2022
That cafe smelled like fresh-baked bread and cookies, and the baristas were all women with warm, soft hands who called everyone — the Senator, the mothers, the babies, the businessmen — Honey. So many…
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: Why Writing Matters in the Age of Despair

  • Lyz Lenz
  • April 12, 2022
No word is wasted. No story is told in vain.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: The Sunday Rumpus Essay: The Butch and the Bathroom

  • Barrie Jean Borich
  • April 5, 2022
Then there is the bathroom issue. My beloved is like me, like you, like anyone. Sometimes a person has to go.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Cure for Last Night’s Leftovers

  • Monica Prince
  • March 22, 2022
Let’s be clear: There is no hangover cure. Anyone who claims to have never had a hangover is either a) a liar, b) a teetotaler, or c) a responsible drinker. I’m none of those things, most days, despite effort, and the number of times I’ve searched for “how to cure a hangover” in the harsh light of a weekend morning is embarrassing the older I get, so manage your expectations.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Sons and Daughters

  • Ben Jatos
  • March 15, 2022
Boys were boys and girls were girls and gender norms were there for a reason. We didn’t realize the reason was to keep women down. Maybe we just didn’t care.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Opioids in Sobriety

  • Ren Asba
  • March 8, 2022
Using opioids while maintaining my sobriety became a skill that I continued to develop over the following couple of years. The irony—finally becoming capable of moderating my drug use—was not lost on me.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Complete the Sentence

  • Maya Jewell Zeller
  • March 3, 2022
We baked a fresh bowl for dinner?, I wonder. Do you think the pen will sink or grow? Do you think a pen will sink or throw? Sure. This could be a very delightful exercise (for poets), I think to myself.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Burning

  • Dionne Irving
  • March 1, 2022
Oh yes, she knows about the holy trinity of colorism, good hair, and a banging body. She understands what she is for these white men, that she is the socially acceptable version of black womanhood...
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: The Dark All Around Us

  • Ryan McDonald
  • February 24, 2022
There is still light in the dark. This is the paradox that Little Bear has to accept in order to fall asleep.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

The Three-Month Curse

  • Melissa Johnson
  • February 22, 2022
For seven years I’d met the perfect man in fall, dated him for three months, then wailed as Fate plucked out my heart and devoured it, whole and beating. (Only to grow back and be eaten again twelve months later.) This was some Prometheus-level bullshit.
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