Descent, Interrupted
cw: suicidal ideation It is the spring semester of your senior year. Sunlight warms the sidewalk, damp with dark patches of melted slush. You hook your thumbs into the straps of your backpack and walk to campus. You’re in the center of Standish Park, a square block of benches …
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I don’t think it’s fair
Dida and the wall are in the middle of a conversation that uses a dead language without translation or root. The wall is her accomplice. She plans to bomb the roof for not letting her see the sky. The wall knows nothing about the blue that echoes across the earth, …
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Radicle: An Interview with Jennifer Lang
Note: This interview was conducted in May 2023. Jennifer Lang has vivid memories of mother-daughter pilgrimages to the Oakland public library when she was a child. She can hear the creak of the hardwood floor, her mom shushing her if she dared speak. She can feel her fingers touch …
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Tender Head
I felt safe going back to his apartment after our first date because I’d met him at the library. In front of the Hot Summer Reads! display, he’d been beanstalk-tall in an R.E.M. t-shirt. Jeans cuffed around his ankles and a Kundera novel in an oversized hand. Later, at the …
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Anesthesia
The homeowner was drinking cocktails by the pool. He mixed them up on a small metal cart stocked with glassware, ice, and liquor. He’d had a few already. The pool boy knew from the work order that the man’s name was O’Hara. “The trick to a good Old Fashioned,” …
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