Some of the Places I Am Stuck
I lived there, suspended in the moment before I chose to move.
...more
Posts Tagged: self harm
The Fluidity of Language and Identity: Melissa Faliveno’s Tomboyland
When was the first time you remember seeing yourself in a book you were reading?
...more
The Cost of Liberation: Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Patsy’s imagined freedom in America, she discovers almost immediately, was an illusion.
...more
Bring the Inward Outward: Talking with Greg Mania
Greg Mania discusses his debut memoir, BORN TO BE PUBLIC.
...more
Permadeath
All your efforts and still you must reckon with this end.
...more
Fields of Light
Light reflects differently off near and faraway objects. It’s all about the light.
...more
Ode to Girlhood: Olivia Gatwood’s Life of the Party
The world that suffocates girls still has a lot to learn from them.
...more
Afrofuturist Triptych for My Mother
This is what I think of when I think of home; Africa is my altar.
...more
The Mania of Queer Desire: In Praise of Fever Ray’s Plunge
I remember driving a bird mad once.
...more
Blood Falls: On Self-Harm and Making Pain Visible
Always present and never heard, like the pain I feel but don’t know how to share.
...more
Nurture Rupture: On Motherhood, Writing, and Gender Inequality
Do I have a public self that is separate from my private self? I’m not so certain about that.
...more
ENOUGH: A Drama Queer Navigates Trauma
A Rumpus series of work by women and non-binary writers that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
...more
Ablutions: A Triptych
I am twenty the first time I turn the water red.
...more
Smoke Screen
I am an oracle who, while dispensing answers to all those who seek them, cannot predict my own future.
...more
Breathing into the Paper Bag: Talking with Jenny Valentish
Jenny Valentish discusses her memoir, WOMEN OF SUBSTANCES.
...more
Breaking the Codes
So I said nothing. To protect you, and to protect myself.
...more
Inborn Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact
Maybe you were whistling before you could talk, too.
...more
ENOUGH: He Could Kill Me
A Rumpus series of work by women and non-binary writers that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
...more
Becoming Bodies
[W]e wanted something different from each other’s bodies than what was actually there, which might be why our bodies sometimes came together.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Shame Is a Treble Hook
Shame is a treble hook that tells me that 1) I not only fail but am a failure, that 2) I not only damage people but I am damaged, and that 3) I not only lie but I am a lie.
...more
Back to the Places I’ve Left
“No one knows how to handle it,” I tell her, but I can see she’s angry and I’m speaking into the wind.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Dynamite
The world is a merry-go-round, a sawed-off shotgun, a ticker tape. There’s no struggle now. There’s only darkness, breathlessness, exit—
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: No Wound
Maybe I can touch it and show it to you. If I convince you, we can call it real. And then perhaps it will be.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Heirlooms
The strings of our DNA mark us as one, but it’s the roots of our memories that bind us.
...more
On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood
One week last spring I said it out loud for the first time: “Sometimes I play so long, my fingers go numb.”
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: On Madness and Mad Men
In my eight years as a Mad Men fan, the series has repeatedly prompted me to reflect on parenting.
...more
Albums of Our Lives: Nirvana’s Nevermind
The first time I listened to Nevermind, I sat on the bathroom floor with the liner notes and jewel case open on my lap.
...more
His Greatest Masterpiece
The banality of evil hides in people, and who they unleash it upon become forever tainted by their names. They become one. Creator and monster. Evil by association.
...more