Lynn Emanuel: Some Notes on Intoxication and Simile
If my mother had not been an alcoholic, I might not have been a poet.
Jay Carson: Luminary
Just in case you think I got screwed up only recently, let me tell you about the fire: My wife in those days was a candle maker as well as … Continue reading
Kate Daniels: Detox
So she wouldn’t judge, she practiced empathy, sitting for months in full lotus, palms open, thumb and forefinger touching to make a small circle she could empty her thoughts inside … Continue reading
Kate Daniels: Driving
That was the year that summer lingered and fall came on late. I was still wearing sleeveless clothes when the temperatures fell, and the wind rose suddenly, and tore the … Continue reading
Kate Daniels: Relapse
Several of the young men from the treatment center are already dead. They spanned the demographic spectrum so no conclusions can be made about why they did, or didn’t, make it. … Continue reading
Kate Daniels: Getting Clean
i You can boil yourself down to the rudiments, all the way to the very bottom, and sit there pruning yourself to the compact form of a bouillon cube, its … Continue reading
Kate Daniels: At the Meetings They Say, “Detach with Love”
When the alcoholic fell before reaching The bed, and pissed his pants before Passing out, and shat himself, and puked Up what was left of lunch, and just lay there … Continue reading
Kate Daniels: Support Group
For a long time, each day was a bad day. Truthfully? For years, each day was a bad day. The nights were worse, but she could slide The deadbolt … Continue reading
Tristan Ahtone: How an Ancient Singing Tradition Helps People Cope With Trauma in the Modern World
Riitta Excell wore a pair of homemade wool socks: white with red floral patterns and rounded blue toes. Around her were women sipping tea and enjoying plum pastries and chicken … Continue reading
Kate Daniels: Molecules
Whether it’s true or not, that all our molecules replace themselves each seven years, his body seems halfway new again, one year into sobriety. I keep my distance now but … Continue reading
Susan Sailer: In Welch
I’m trying to reach Superior, pull in to an old gas station in southern West Virginia. In the office a man sits on a high stool. I ask him … Continue reading
Michael Simms: Hammer
On East Carson Street, skinny white boys Slump in front of tattoo parlors Scratching their arms. Girls In short skirts take long pulls On cigs, stand in groups Smiling at … Continue reading
Abby Zimet: We are a pre-existing condition
Gone is that loathsome sea of smug, suited, doughy, self-righteous, chortling, older white men in the Rose Garden gleefully celebrating the “moral travesty” of passing a billionaires’ tax cut bill … Continue reading
Video: “Nuggets” (a short animated film about addiction)
This short animated film by Andreas Hykade, the Director of the Animation and Visual Effects program at Germany’s Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, is a fable about addiction. Things start off innocuously, with … Continue reading
