Dry Leaves Tumble Down University Circle
By Essay Issue 112
Still, the novels and histories of madness couldn’t hold a candle—well, maybe Plath could—to stories of the Complete Nervous Breakdown I’d heard throughout childhood. My grandmother always had a story about somebody she knew who’d broken down.
Read More1983
By Poetry Issue 103
That first morning, I remember
clinging to a table’s edge—
both legs jackhammering the white
linoleum floor tiles—praying for
my benzodiazepine to finally,
finally kick in.
The Thorn and the Heart: Anxiety, Irony, and Faith
By Essay Issue 90
Ø IT WAS ONE OF THOSE OVERCAST October mornings in College Station that look like they ought to be much colder than they are. I walked back to my south-side dorm from the Zachry Center in shirtsleeves, sweating, a zippy mock-turtleneck sweater over my arm. Zachry was an engineering building at the far northeast corner…
Read MoreThe Anxiety Offices
By Poetry Issue 57
I am none the less
boundless this morning,
trawling, under your sway,
winter’s counterfeit cages
wracked & rife & caroled
by the catalogue of all
I do and must learn to love
beyond my power to stay.
Plates from a Forgotten Book: The Paintings of Kim Alexander
By Essay Issue 81
IT IS A RARE mild September afternoon in Dallas when Kim Alexander sits me down. We are at her kitchen table, mere yards from her studio, which has spilled out of one spare bedroom into that familiar mid-mod home space, the den. In the regional vernacular for which we Texans are known but which we…
Read MoreThe Spif
By Short Story Issue 84
SINCE ACCIDENTALLY BEING LOCKED inside Carmody’s Used Books, I’ve slept badly. In the mornings I manage a bright if groggy farewell as my husband gives his suit pockets a preflight pat and the kids shrug into school backpacks. Alone, I pour myself more coffee and read—the newspaper, catalogues, reviews in the alternative weekly, passages of…
Read MoreA Viewing Party
By Short Story Issue 83
IN THE CAR ON THE WAY to the Grosses’ my wife says, “I’m just hoping we can get to know some of these people. Like really get to know them.” I nod and she goes on, “And I don’t mean like they are projects, like we are just trying to save them.” I agree with her.…
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