I run my mother’s old engagement ring along its chain around my neck. Back and forth in the absentminded way I have been doing since I strung it there last month.
California by Amanda Fletcher
Category: Essays
An archive of all of the personal essays we’ve published at Hippocampus Magazine over the years.
Like a Riverbank by Travis Truax
You write out of Montana now—with July’s still-snowy mountains. You are led up and down a scrambled map, open prairie, the bluest lakes, the sharpest peaks…
When the Gloves Come Off by Michael Fischer
Alie breezes in with her big warm smile, scans my barcode—to make sure I’m the right person, or maybe to see if I’m on sale—then carefully lifts up my sheet and peers down at my penis.
Song of Her Self by Sarah Broussard Weaver
My hair stylist brushed chemicals onto my hair. The clientless stylist in the booth beside us talked about how she’d recently—finally—lost the weight she gained after getting off Adderall.
When Indira Died by Madhushree Ghosh
One month after I turn 14, the third prime minister to govern the world’s largest democracy, Indira Gandhi, is assassinated in New Delhi.
The Strongest Cookie by Sarah Twombly
My grandma and I are in her kitchen filling two baking sheets with rounds of cookie dough when I realize someday, in the not too distant future, she will be the oldest person on earth.
1001 Nights by Dina Honour
The first story is never more than a whisper. It echoes in the water dance of a mother’s womb and travels through a universe of umbilicus.
Spinning Shame into Nostalgia by Robert Rubino
Hidden deep inside a suburban daily rag’s local section of April 12, 1996, to the left of legal notices, above car and tire ads, a six-inch murder-suicide story with the 24-point headline Two Bodies Found…
Advanced Placement by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
This course engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of your body as it is flung at high speed toward a dew-soaked lawn on a hot night in June of 1999.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bird by Naomi Cohn
I still miss the old way of looking at a black bird. I remember, from my days of less imperfect sight, watching a blackbird huff his wings.
