shame
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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.
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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…
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #87: Kai Cheng Thom
Rarely is birth silent for anyone involved. Silence, instead, is a learned phenomena. Unlearning silence can become its own birth, as it seems in Kai Cheng Thom’s debut poetry collection a place called No Homeland, opening with, “diaspora babies, we…
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Cost of Intimacy
Chasing intimacy can feel cheap—and yet intimacy we pay for can be meaningful. I find traditional therapy as awkward as sex, exposing my emotional self like I expose my body.
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Written in Chalk: What It Means to Be Crazy
As truth becomes more elusive, as fact blends with fiction, we ought to take notice of how we categorize people, as categorization seems to be married to suppression, to disenfranchisement.
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #22: Poverty Is Never “Genteel”
Poverty may have been beloved of St. Francis, but not so much by the rest of us. Nobody likes to look at advanced poverty, toothless and drooling, clutching the hands of children who have running sores on their filthy legs.…
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The Rumpus Interview with Joshua Mohr
Joshua Mohr discusses his memoir Sirens, writing for his daughter, and why he values art that trusts its audience.
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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.
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The Alienation of an Irish Abortion
Was it a dream? A nightmare? I felt like I’d been sold a lie. There was no husband or caring partner, no safe home or solid income. Just me, pregnant and alone, in an abortion clinic with my rapist.
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What I’ll Tell My Children: On Being ‘F***Able’ under the Regime of President-elect
It’s time to take responsibility for compliancy.
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The Rumpus Review of The Light Between Oceans
I wanted so badly to invest in the characters, to cry and feel their pain, but I felt detached.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Trouble in Mind
I wasn’t blue always; my campus rape didn’t ruin my life. But at times I’ve found being a woman exhausting.