Essays

$4,035 all-in for this baby.

$3,200. Plus $800 “home study fee” and a $35 application fee. Add inflation and it’s almost 12k, today. The same as, say, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a used Toyota, or a two-week trip to Europe… ⟶

Famous was a matter of time. We inhaled stardust and pollen in the sweltering heat of Massachusetts June, summer theatre. A cicada finale played as the curtain of dusk descended over green hillocks nightly… ⟶

On a Monday, I drag something out to the curb. They watch wary, then scatter, tittering into the wind. In New England winter, the Mourning Dove is a melancholy absurdism. ⟶

Desire, Three Ways

Pithead Chapel

I remember a loose bowl cut of silky brown hair, freckles in a constellation across the bridge of a nose, the scent of fresh laundry on his shirt as I pressed my not-toddler-not-yet-pre-teen face into it and breathed deep ⟶

At its best, I believe flash allows us to harness a potent instant—a death, anxious preparation before a party, the juvenile exhilaration of trespassing to get to a lake—and pours it into a compressed form that reflects its energy. ⟶

Clasping Hands

Barren Magazine

On the morning my husband of less than a year died, I woke to the sound of sirens coming from the street below. I fumbled around in the closet while Daniel slept, slivers of light cutting lengthwise across his face. ⟶

Listing

XRAY Literary Magazine

MARBLEHEAD, MA — ESTATE SALE BY YOUNGEST SON 4 bedroom / 4.5 bath with 5,679 sq ft. of ample space for nuclear family on .26 acres.

Below listed are the items for sale and a description of the property. Not listed but offered for the specific buyer: being told as a child you would be disowned if gay. ⟶

At 7pm on Saturday evening, at an Airbnb rental in the Poconos, rifle blasts rip through quiet twilight. Sometimes they’re followed by a carnivalesque ding! as the bullet ricochets off what I’d imagine is an empty bean can or coffee tin. It’s an acoustic thumping of the chest. ⟶

Now, You Tell Me Something

The Maine Review

As a child, I once poured a heap of table salt onto a brown slug, watched it partially dissolve, then used a stick to slough off its damaged skin. Somewhere, I’d heard that slugs don’t like salt. ⟶

1.

Husband will never believe you when you tell him he’s beautiful, but you must keep trying. ⟶

On Time

Columbia Journal

If I could reverse time, I would pick up the phone that night.

Amid the Sturm und Drang of a coat-closet-cum-Manhattan-restaurant, I am nestled into conversation with my husband and sister, the steam from the kitchen making soft vignettes of the windows. ⟶

Spring Cleaning

Stone of Madness Press

Windows

Wrench open your paint-sealed windows with a palette knife. Fight with the rusted door, wet it with sweat and saline and coax it to give in. Once air is moving, you've begun the process in earnest. ⟶

Signs

JMWW

The cockatiel fell from somewhere in the sky on a day in summer the same year the medium said look and mom said look and I refused to look. ⟶

Fiction

Throwing Stones

Best Microfiction 2022

One after another, the brother who did not think of himself as a brother, made an arc like a rainbow or a bridge or the door to a church and listened, seconds after: glug! ⟶

Dr. Phil’s house is not for you.

Its modern-cum-Wyoming-chic-cum-Mohegan-Sun interiors are not for your eyes. The entry with vibrant fuck-bear art and purple egg chair hanging from the ceiling is not for you to sit in. Its screening room with oversized Barney-colored couch and TV that plays only Godfather at maximum volume and cannot be shut off is not for your ears. ⟶

Craft Interviews

Melissa Febos

Curiouser

How would you say that you as a writer, or anybody for that matter, cultivates persistence?

When we’re younger we overvalue talent and undervalue tenacity, because even with very little talent, the persistence will get you actually quite far. No amount of talent will suffice if you don’t have persistence. Ideally one has both. ⟶

Michele Filgate

Curiouser

How do we critique ourselves and others without cutting down?

Start out by focusing on a few things that are working. People are more likely to listen when they feel like they’re being seen. I think we need to approach it from a space of positivity moving into critique. ⟶