Rumpus essays
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Speaking to Men at Parties
There are moments when the light passes just right over the high point of someone’s cheekbone and I imagine my whole life as it would have been in a different universe, tracing the events of this imaginary life from that…
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Terra Incognita
At 30, I am about to bisect the difference in age between my mother and mother’s mother when they gave birth.
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Voices on Addiction: Washed Clean
That’s when I noticed John the Baptist standing chest-high in the middle of the narrow, easy-moving river.
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The Muralist
The thing about living with my ex’s mural of his own ex about two hundred feet from my apartment was that I loved it.
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The Most-Read Essays of 2022
Essays are all about reflection, and we thought we’d kick off 2023 with a look at the most-read pieces of last year. It can sometimes feel like hours (years) of hard work disappear into the maw of our short attention…
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Anecdotal and Harsh
The thing about trauma is that it can split a person right down the middle. And J. was, indeed, bifurcated in this way. That is, she occupied multiple timelines simultaneously.
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Space to Breathe
We inhale when we’re born, then breathe and breathe and breathe until one day we exhale our final breath.
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The Last Book
The poet goes to the supermarket for peanut butter. The poet cleans the toilet. The poet responds to emails.
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Constraints: A Hometown Ode
. . . the sheets hold a diagonal crease: the memory of the line, an imprint as obvious and useless as the adult our childhood selves once planned to be.
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SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW: A Search for Transcendence & Annihilation in New Zealand’s Hippie Paradise
“I once ate a mushroom in New Zealand,” I tell people, “though I had no idea if it was edible.”
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Gentlemen, Start Your Engines
In 2022, I attended the 106th running of the Indianapolis 500, and watched cars hurtle past at 220 mph—fast enough to cover a football field in nine tenths of a second. Over 325,000 fans cheered louder than the engines themselves.
