by Petra Kuppers One origin story of this essay is the fall of a particular tree on social media, and that tree’s roots in ancient empires. In September 2023, the Sycamore Gap tree in the UK died under an axe, fell across social media horizons around the world, and provoked tears in many who had…
Category: Essays
Fruit, by Susan Nordmark
It was a kind of sex. For over a week the sunsets had been glaring neon from forest fires up north. It was late in the afternoon and the sky still hung ozone across the parking lot, the char suspended in the dry air scraping inside my nostrils. Every week I bring tote bags here to buy groceries.…
Theodolite, by Kit Eginton
Why is dysphoria so hard to write about? Well, for something to be hard to write about, what must be true about it? When we write, we try to think of good lines. A good line is concise, it gets to the heart of the matter. A line is a path across a field, a…
“Contested Meanings” by Yazan ElHaj
In his address at a Sanitary Fair in 1864, Abraham Lincoln pointed out an oft forgotten dimension in wars. “We all declare for liberty,” he said, “but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.” If we brushed aside the thundering noise of arms and the suffocating clouds of smoke…
“The Student” by Jade Hidle
The Plaque My dad wanted a lot of things that didn’t happen.One was to be with me more than every other weekend,Another was to be a history teacher.So, one dawn, we started a cross-country trek to Civil War battlegrounds– The longest unbroken time we’d ever spent together–Hurtling toward the horizon of what we thought we…
Piper Gourley
Ziggy Stardust is in the Walls 1/ My mother says a prayer over my shaking body. I do not join her. God kisses the sad children, the good ones. I am not a good one. I am preparing to be swallowed. I am apart from the belly of the institution—from the clinic’s yellow bricks, the…