Category Archives: Essay

Three Essays

Three Essays

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Six weeks after giving birth, one morning Beth lacked the strength to lift a hair dryer. Soon tugging a diaper tab spiked piercing pain. Her immune system assaulted her muscles. A drug cocktail restored her somewhat but with cruel side effects. Meanwhile, a book about the disease offered this on page two: “A good carpenter can extend the doorways in your house to accommodate the wheelchair.”more

My Father’s Son

My Father’s Son

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I’ve written it a thousand times and never gotten any further. My father is a murderer. My father is a murderer. We haven’t seen each other in two decades but it repeats in my head like a mantra I cannot shake. If half of me is him and he is a murderer, what did I inherit? Who am I if I am some of him?more

Waiting for It

Waiting for It

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The speaker says something about are you doing what you want in your life, or are you believing in yourself, or something along those lines, and I may as well have been struck by lightning, because the answer, I realize, in no uncertain terms is no, I’m not.more

My Father, My Uncle

My Father, My Uncle

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Something other than forgiveness for a con manmore

Compliance

Compliance

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Someday we’ll talk about us, but today is not that day.more

Soft Talk

Soft Talk

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I just started talking to myself. I’m not sure it’s a good thing.more

Four Essays

Four Essays

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I have a ritual before I get my haircut. I take off my nail polish. Earrings have to come off, too. The rainbow lanyard that hangs from my pocket must stay inside my car. Most importantly, my voice must get deeper. Queer folks aren’t as welcome in these parts. Only the manly men. Only the straight men.more

These Days

These Days

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Today my eyes are filled with drywall dust. The gypsum fire deterrent bonded by thin cardboard breaks easily with the prying crowbar. The new house gutted and needing more work than expected; holes in the sheathing from pests and soggy with water damage. I just wanted something to go our way, for once, Amy says.more

Pain

Pain

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It’s 2006 or 2007. George W. Bush is our president. I am eight or nine years old. Uncle Dave, my mother’s younger brother by a handful of years, is my official introduction to pain, because Dave is in a great deal of pain. Some accomplishments. He’s not drinking anymore. He’s not wetting the bed anymore.more

Man to Man

Man to Man

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In the voice of this charismatic stranger, basketball is a mystical game you can control before the ball is even in your hands. There’s a way of feeling out the court, of knowing where to stand. He generously shares his knowledge with me, as though, like the sun and the stars, it belongs to everyone.more