I had forgotten how warm the water is straight out of the faucet in Key West. Open the cold tap, and you’ll get water warm enough to bathe in.
The Right Tap by Lara Lillibridge
Category: Essays
An archive of all of the personal essays we’ve published at Hippocampus Magazine over the years.
Just a Ferryman by Dan Branch
Auggie was passed out drunk when I first met Elizabeth. It was three in the afternoon on a summer Friday, only ninety minutes before the court closed for the weekend.
A Stroll Westward: Twenty-Five Years in Coney Island by Natasha Lvovich
The sky is low; the September sun is tender; and the bright orange of life guards’ swimsuits and umbrellas has been replaced by the green of fully clothed Parks and Recreation officers.
Fearless by Madhushree Ghosh
On December 16, 2012, a young physiotherapy student and her friend, who happens to be a boy, board a bus after watching The Life of Pi in a multiplex in New Delhi.
House of Animals by Tal Abbady
When a stray dog broke into the family garden one afternoon, my cat chased him back out onto the street.
Good Intentions and a Bad Idea by Anjoli Roy
The thing is, I don’t even like dogs. In my world, dogs are either small, yappy things that gnaw your ankles or monsters that slobber on your sundresses.
Cowboys Are His Weakness by Kim Steutermann Rogers
I twiddle with the radio during the four-hour drive from the airport in Midland, Texas, to Big Bend National Park… Now, the airwaves match the landscape: vacant.
My Barber Ben by Barth Landor
My barber Ben cut hair in Auschwitz. He spent three and a half years in a darkness in which it would seem impossible for anything to have grown, including hair.
Glorious Defeats: Lessons in Emergency Medicine by Linda Keyes
“I said, can you get me something to eat bitch?” I stiffen. This is early on in my emergency medicine residency and I haven’t yet learned to reply, “That’s Doctor bitch to you, sir.”
Four Times More Likely by Rae Pagliarulo
When my father said the word predisposed, I felt a twinge of nerves. We were having “the talk.” Not the one about birds or bees, but something bigger and scarier that my brother and I would have to inevitably face…
