Swimming
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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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Rumpus Original Fiction: Genesis
The speed boat moves fast and Genesis notices Kayla’s hair keeps getting into her eyes. She laughs, as do all the others, who bounce up and down and let out high-pitched screams each time the boat rides a wave up…
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Forms of Narrowing: Julie Otsuka’s The Swimmers
After the memorials, the funerals, the endless influx of flowers and casserole dishes and well-meaning texts, the collective retreats back into their lives and all that is left is the individual, grieving for months and years and perhaps even the…
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The Water Goddess
To exist solely now on land is to live always waiting to reenter the water—to feel soothed even by the sound of it falling. To live a life on land is to feel the loss of our former lives within…
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Less Than I Hope For
If we want to talk about desire, a gnawing ache for something we don’t yet have, or for something we’ve lost, we can say that we yearn for the transformation that the satisfaction of our desire will bring.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Distance Devotion
If I understood the difference between good and great in that moment, it would be years before I came to accept it.
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Colorama
How does one scene impress itself on us, so that we remember it better than we should if we were in it? Or rest, just below the surface, present, but unnoticed?
