818 Search results for "second day"

  by Julia Mallory “…but in them days they wasn’t no time for mournin.’ ” —Mary Reynolds, Texas Slave Narratives Volume XVI Part III Juneteenth began as a day of celebration commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas on June 19th, 1866. Since then, it has offered Black folks an opportunity to remember […]

I’ve learned it’s best not to try to control how the memories of my mother show up, or what emotions they are wearing when they enter. This one is dressed in a rare crossbreed of inconsolable laughter and a stabbing sob, and it’s seeping out of my iphone from wherever the speaker is located on […]

By Donnie Moreland You always toss the white bass back into these waters. They had it hard enough than to be wrestling in somebody’s hands for air, for too long. When one catches on the line, you pull it up and toss it back. Most of the time, you just let it have the lure […]

CW: Mention of child loss Everything is a cult. All flesh is bound to shift. Religion is a cloak, pockmarked with heartache, torture, and selfishness. These are the facts of my world, its edges stacked on top of each other and topped with salty syrup. Life is an ever revolving door of orange desert sand […]

by Janyce Glasper Hannah Bledsoe loved Linda Crawford. Yet Hannah desperately needed a quiet, isolated place to paint alone. One simply could not crash on a college friend’s couch forever. She found salvation in the good neighborhood— a drafty basement converted into a studio apartment. The tightly jarred windows and cracked ceilings poorly congealed together […]

By Donnie Moreland Only on nights like this, could “sweet” be an adjective to describe the air. A prize, really. All those brothers, shoulder to shoulder on the Mall, and you can imagine how much funk can stew in a day. But a soft wind started everyone on their way back from where they began […]

We search for the body of the ghost’s sister underneath what is left of the fifteen level building. It’s mid morning and the sky is black, its marine layer covered in thick fog and ash. All around us the packed city spreads open like a gate, beckoning. The world is quiet now, with everyone huddled […]

by Donnie Moreland “Art museums are nothing more than haunted houses.” In Demetrius’s head, the words spun like a tired wheel, as he walked the corners of the room. Like a drum, Marcus’s voice bounced as though he were still alive. “Art museums are nothing more than haunted houses. All museums are, really. But there […]

by JAO I realized I am non-binary my second year of undergrad. One morning, as I was getting ready for class, I looked in the mirror like I had tons of times before. And for whatever reason, on that day, I no longer saw a girl. I wasn’t sure what or who I was seeing, […]

by Donnie Moreland As a boy, I remember learning about firefighters. I found their work as spectacular as the graphic novels, and Saturday morning superheroes, which crowded my daydreams. There was no difference between the cape and their fire helmet. And there were enough Black men, dawning the garb and colors of the local fire […]

I come from a whistling family. We like sound. The way tones release emotion, scent, possibility. The way whistling can shape and bend bone, can spellcast, can river. I sat at the feet of the women in my family often, feeling lucky and at home in their voices, their stories, the way they moved their […]

Content Warning: Descriptions of medical violence against folks who are intersex and/or have been diagnosed with PCOS by Gillian Giles When I was 12, the anticipation and excitement of preparing to experience my first period was all consuming. Cultural messaging taught me that the event would be a gender defining moment. I hoped starting my […]