love

My girlfriend and I were walking back to my place from Target, whose red, illuminated sign had become my new moon, when I saw the Dumpster sitting behind the Cineplex…

Image Credit: Mercedes Floresislas-Medina   “I’m a therapist. I’m a psychotherapist. I’m a mental health professional. Repeat. And breathe. Don’t forget to breathe. Breathe.” I’m frazzled by the lack of sleep…

* * * Come sit and empty your pockets, child, and let us count what we’ve got. We can sort it this way: for me, love counts. And cancer counts.…

Last night, I walked towards the street of the home where we used to live. I got as far as the curb across from our stoop, then had to sit…

Need Not I need not fly I fold my wings I bow my head I wait for things I need not feel you Everywhere I need not breathe In so…

1976: This cursed bloodline begat me. Cries at cold air. The beginnings of pain. 1979: Health freak mother teaches me that soda pop and the red cherries on top of…

Image Credit: Nick Fewings   Just before Christmas in 2006, I met my one true love in the most unlikely, modern way. My best buddy Rae had helped me onto…

My Girl’s Green Jacket by Mary Meriam Headmistress Press, 2018 108 pages / Headmistress   Every time one attempts to categorize or pigeonhole Mary Meriam’s poetry, one comes up against “it…

Baby, I Don’t Care by Chelsey Minnis Wave Books, 2018 272 pages / Wave   The question is endlessly familiar to poetry but often less prevalent in the work of poet Chelsey…

WOVEN is an Entropy series and dedicated safe space for essays by persons who engage with #MeToo, sexual assault and harassment, and #DomesticViolence, as well as their intersections with mental…

The messages stream in, from friends, acquaintances, strangers. “Thought of you when I heard the news.” I am grateful for their thoughtfulness and ashamed at the attention. The well wishes…

Five years ago, my best friend C died. She was twenty. She was a poet. She once told me that everyone has not only a Soul Mate Person, but also…

Appropriately enough, I finished reading Paul Cohen’s The Glamshack in the middle of a heatwave that temporarily turned Eugene, Oregon into Memphis, Tennessee. My wife and I had traveled to…

I love beauty beauty beauty in writing. Updike, Nabokov. Also songwriters like Neko Case, Fiona Apple, Sufjan Stevens…people who write about both ordinary and strange things in gorgeous, heartbreaking ways. That’s what we’re going for at WhiskeyPaper. Also, we want anyone/everyone to be able to read and enjoy—from people who teach writing to people who may not even read more than one book a year.