The first doctor who called said I couldn’t play. The scan showed stress fractures and the only remedy was rest. It would... more
The world does not write enough odes
to in-betweenness—the way you can be
together / feel apart / apart / feel... more
As teenagers, my friends and I spent Friday nights driving backroads, throwing soda cans at street signs. The wind... more
The bum drags himself off the floor. Then comes on nice. Real buddy buddy shit.
And christ it's gonna be hot inside the tiny bar where SUMAC is playing tonight. I should've stayed home. Like I always do. An old man on his couch.
Then I hear it. Loud as the train coming into the station. Fuckinragabagagrrahfuuck. Ah ha. Of course. The unmistakable call of the down and out drunk.
Radio Tower, 4yrs old
The radio tower had big cones on top. We were in the car and I said to mom, “What are those?” She didn't... more
Had a little accident last night Stevie, my boss yells. Tote fell over in the back of a truck. Someone's gotta clean up all that fish. I turn my head from him. Stare off out passed the end of the harbour. Where the horizon and Lake Eerie meet. Dissolve into one another. The breeze in my hair. Thinking why me?
I don't like most people. And have been jealous of Bud for ages. With reason.
Now here I am. The same fucking predicament all over. The universe testing to see what I'll do.
Sitting in the Montreal bus terminal I make a decision. To eat the last of my weed candies.
1.
My father died on Christmas Eve, 1986. I was three years old. When my mother broke the news, I responded in a... more
It must've been the late nineties. I was collecting welfare at the time. I couldn't have been more then 17.... more
1.
I cut through the small park. Come out the other side. As soon as I do I feel eyes on me. I look up from the... more
Of course the laundromat goes quiet. I glance around. We're all shocked. I catch the eyes of a little girl. Hair in pigtails. She looks scared.
I came at reading this book as I do most things. Like a fool. I expected what... more
By the time Zoe and I started down the Overseas Highway, we had been living a nomadic lifestyle out of our 1995 Corolla for nearly four months.
I got my period the moment we got to the hotel. Getting my period wasn’t going to affect any of my plans, and was no big deal, really, aside from the fact that I refuse to pay attention to my body so am always completely surprised when my period comes. As such, I had brought no supplies to Miami with me.
I make him coffee, I make hot chocolate for his kids, and sometimes I buy his weed.
I wanted this essay to be about love. I wanted it to also be about my grandfather and Arkansas and my copy of Ain’t Doing Too B-A-D, Bad, a live jazz record by The Bobby Bryant Sextet.
½ cup (one stick) of unsalted butter (higher quality butter = better tasting cannabutter)
¼ ounce of weed, VERY finely ground
1.
Not long after my father died, my mother bought a brand-new bright-red Toyota Celica GT. She also... more
bambi on Nov 6, 2015
He is the new dopehead in town..........WORTHLESS!!!!!!! !!!
"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.
