1. We are young and we snake through synagogue back hallways. Play truth or dare. Seven minutes in heaven. Stay away from the sanctuary.
As teenagers, my friends and I spent Friday nights driving backroads, throwing soda cans at street signs. The wind... more
I started reading My Struggle in the spring of 2014. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but... more
June 1, 1944 – Squadron party. Real whiskey, but didn’t get too hi – just happy. Met a W.A.F. (Women Air Force) & we talked English history.
A Godly woman has to make a living, after all.
My friend told me, it’s just about you needing control. I did not respond when she said this. Considering nothing is just about anything.
Please God forgive me. Please God forgive me.
The bum drags himself off the floor. Then comes on nice. Real buddy buddy shit.
While the atmosphere pumps steroids into hurricanes, let me feel the Ecuadorian sun on my face.
Once Katie swiped my card I began to panic. This was exactly how people accidentally joined cults. They just found some charismatic, manipulative person and started giving them all their money.
“Hide the Tzahal patch,” he warned before seeing me off.
My homework, which I assigned to myself, the way kids do sometimes, consisted of hobbling around my room in a witch hat, practicing spells on my shoes.
Route #1 via I-476 South
Time to destination: 25 years, with plenty of stops for gas, food, fear, and shame. 14 if you... more
If I had to take a shit that meant I had to go downstairs. I didn’t have a specific aversion to leaving the attic— I just never felt... more
In my favorite bookstore in a city where I no longer live, there’s a sign for sale that says: when in doubt, turn... more
In the spring of 1989 an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building crossed Earth’s orbit.
It happened at a small party I’d planned at a nightclub in the meatpacking district.
From The Happiest Place On Earth
The door is open, I said, just come in.
Liz and I sit up with a start.
An envelope with my name on it, xoxo.
We met in the pathology suite ––me the medical student––you the corpse.
"I didn't want to ever be outside of this moment. I knew at some point I would look at the picture I'd just taken and feel an overwhelming sense of loss. I thought as long as we could manage to stay inside this particular hotel room, to avoid our phones and every person with whom we'd ever come into contact, we would continue to feel whole. We were revolutionaries, goddamnit. These were our accumulation of beautiful moments. Before the world fractured us. I don't expect you to understand how I became Brad Pitt in that moment, how we all just flew along down the highway. Bandits. Ex-patriots. In love with this countryside, if not this country. Paper Moon. The Last Picture Show. All of this shot in black and white. Only the final scene in color."
FOUR NEW ESSAYS BY CHLOE CALDWELL! Plus the original essays that made you fall in love with Chloe!
Jason Phoebe Rusch is a queer writer from the Chicago suburbs. His full-length debut Dualities explores gender and patriarchy from the perspective of a man who was socialized and is currently still read as a woman. He is interested in complication and nuance and messy human failing, his own and that of others.
