From the Archive: Unbound
It’s always been ground glass, scraping against my insides. I imagine a light held to the place where I open would illuminate a mess of torn flesh, throbbing red-wet.
...moreBecome a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!It’s always been ground glass, scraping against my insides. I imagine a light held to the place where I open would illuminate a mess of torn flesh, throbbing red-wet.
...moreClothes, plants, and broken aluminum doors on balconies—all was inside out.
...more“A poem cannot exist without form or structure, just like the human body can’t operate without a skeleton.”
...moreWhy was he so broken? And why did his broken make me feel broken, too?
...moreEach bug in the water is one less bug on my fruit, I tell myself, ignoring the truth: under the soil, another is born.
...moreUp close, the beach was disgusting and tragic. A million tiny pieces of plastic were heaped on the shore like confetti from a hundred parades, or like the real sand on the beach threw up.
...moreMy doctor told me to begin with adding five minutes to my morning walk. During those five minutes, I recalled the life I’d once had—that intense life that ambition gave me—and the man I’d once been.
...moreWe looked up as we moved. A handful of stars watched us behind a ripped black canvas of clouds. It started to rain as we all got to our cars. The skies poured down globs of heavy rain that burst out like tiny bombs around us.
...moreIt’s true that real estate can’t save a marriage. But it might be equally true that it can save a relationship.
...moreThe summer before my final year at college, my fear started to manifest as an anxiety disorder specializing in sickness and disease.
...morePerhaps part of what prompted me to get clean and sober was the fact I kept making myself uncomfortable.
...morePast the break lies motherhood as I understand it: the rawest life that lifts and falls and crashes against beauty, and the eternal potential for heartbreak.
...moreThis essay is not about love. Love doesn’t enter into it. We are talking mechanics. Four chambers, ventricles and atria. The mammalian heart, and thus, the bat heart, and thus, the human heart.
...moreLast month a bear ripped into my tent, clenched his teeth onto my upper left arm, just below my shoulder, and would not let go.
...more