From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Prescriptions
I wore sobriety like a shirt that was too tight in the shoulders, and everyone around me knew it.
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Join NOW!I wore sobriety like a shirt that was too tight in the shoulders, and everyone around me knew it.
...moreOut here on the balcony, perched three stories above the ground, we’re in her world.
...moreI was fine. No one and nothing could hurt me.
...moreI am sick with grief, triggered by my mother’s death, in turn triggered by Chardonnay.
...more“Was it vodka?” Mama said. Her voice had cracks in it. Why ask? She knew.
...moreTelevision babysat our family—our thirteen-channel set, reception via a rooftop antenna.
...moreI grieve my father’s disembodiment. It is my grief inheritance.
...moreIt hadn’t felt like teasing. It felt the way it always did these days—that I had disappointed her.
...moreThe toll I took on people I love can’t be measured. But I want to know.
...moreThere are many ways to be ripped to shreds.
...moreIf you’re going to Hell, bring a good guide.
...moreYou could say that I have trained for this pandemic all my life.
...moreThere is no finality to this grief. Only a series of losses, compounded.
...moreErica C. Barnett discusses her debut memoir, QUITTER.
...moreDrunk women are targets. Drunk men can be anything.
...moreMy sobriety is still a mystery to me. Forty years this December.
...moreMy family rarely throws the word addiction around. If we do, it is whispered.
...moreMaking it to thirty seems unimaginable, yet it happens anyway.
...moreEmily Arnason Casey discusses her debut essay collection, MADE HOLY.
...moreDrinking is the opposite of staying.
...moreFind and replace. Food for alcohol. Daughter for dad.
...moreAmber van de Bunt discusses her debut memoir, OVERCOME.
...moreIt really was art imitating life imitating art imitating life.
...moreWhy was he so broken? And why did his broken make me feel broken, too?
...moreBut we can make choices if we want to live. I believe that.
...moreLilliam Rivera discusses her new novel, DEALING IN DREAMS.
...moreThat’s how I felt again, then: a child suddenly fallen, helpless. Unable even to breathe.
...more“Stories have a power science doesn’t.”
...moreI trust, nowadays. I have to keep at it
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