If you ever want to feel real,
even important,
cry on the street.
Sob. Heave. Bum a half-smoked cigarette.
Drunks rally around your wet eyes:
A woman brings a paper cup of soft serve.
A man in a floral shirt puts his hand on your shoulder
to deliver queer advice:
“You’re just going through it, hun.
We’re all always going through it.”
Kevin Hautigan is from South Florida and lives in New York City. He graduated from Georgetown University.
THE COMMON
The Common published over 175 stories, essays, poems, interviews, and features online and in print in 2024. Browse a list of the ten most-read pieces of 2024 to get a taste of what left an impact on readers.
OLGA ZILBERBOURG
Wilson’s novel, too, is a carnivalesque feast. It offers a constant spectacle of death and renewal in exuberant, entirely over-the-top settings. Most characters have a tragic death story attached to them. There are deaths in car crashes, fires, several forms of cancer, and an epileptic girl who dies from an attack of epilepsy that happens when she’s in prison.
Weekly Writes is a ten-week program designed to help you create original place-based writing and stay accountable to your practice in the new year, beginning January 27.
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