fear
-
I Will Not Die for You
Each bug in the water is one less bug on my fruit, I tell myself, ignoring the truth: under the soil, another is born.
-
Run for Her Life
Maybe you didn’t remember to get out of his way while pretending to be brave. It’s hard to be brave when you think a man is about to kill you.
-
Home Is Here
There is no singular Muslim story, no definitive identity for the entire religion. […] Here, four women discuss what it’s like to be a minority in America in 2017, post-9/11 and post-Trump.
-
Beautiful Liar
I tell myself that all I need is practice and maybe much better shorts. I wonder: when did I become such a beautiful liar? Walk, walk, walk, and fly.
-
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: We Aren’t Killers; They Are
One story mirrors our identity—any of us could be falsely accused! The other tale is about the Other—because it’s unfathomable that one of us would commit murder. We aren’t killers; they are.
-
Rumpus Original Fiction: Bellevonia Beautee
I try to see it, to see forever. The backs of my eyes are hot and ache with the trying.
-
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Savage Mind, Pt. 2
There isn’t even a discussion. There aren’t any words. You just start swinging—the building is a fence, your cousins are a fence. The two of you are surrounded. There’s no escape for either of you.
-
Interrogating the English Language with Safiya Sinclair
To be forced to speak in the language of the colonist, the language of the oppressor, while also carrying within us the storm of Jamaican patois, we live under a constant hurricane of our doubleness.
-
Falling into Fear
I knew that just as the country was reverting, so was I. Every face now seemed a potential enemy and these were feelings I had not felt in almost twenty years.
-
The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #21: Not Yesterday’s Demonstrations
1972: War was waging in Vietnam and kids were coming home in boxes. Hippes and yippies went clean for Gene McCarthy, but George McGovern won the democratic nomination. Tricky Dick Nixon was the one for the Republicans and the so-called Silent…
-
A Place with Teeth
It will be fine, I had told them. It will be an adventure. I was in love. Love is an eternal optimist.
-
Safety Nets: On Seeing Movies with My Children
There’s no blueprint for any of this. If there were, I would have read it by now.