Rumpus essays Archives - The Rumpus

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 spot on their face to my death.

Terra Incognita

At 30, I am about to bisect the difference in age between my mother and mother’s mother when they gave birth.

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.

meyer lemon cut in half

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.

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…

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.

Green eggs

Space to Breathe

We inhale when we’re born, then breathe and breathe and breathe until one day we exhale our final breath.

The Last Book

The poet goes to the supermarket for peanut butter. The poet cleans the toilet. The poet responds to emails.

Forest

To hold up a lie, one must dedicate themselves completely.

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.

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.”

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.

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