Obsessive-compulsive disorder is sometimes described as a hiccup, or loop, in the brain. Instead of thoughts moving smoothly one to the next, a person with OCD gets stuck on a “bad,” or threatening thought…
Holy Basil by Debra Levy
Category: Essays
An archive of all of the personal essays we’ve published at Hippocampus Magazine over the years.
I’ve Got This by Caleb Owens
As a six foot, four inch man who weighs two-hundred and thirty-five pounds and used to be able to bench two-hundred and fifty, I’ve got this.
What Cheeseburgers Look Like in Kansas by Katie O’Neill
I don’t know why I thought the drive from Indiana to California with my boyfriend, Matt, and his sister’s cats would be fun.
A Tripp Family Strike by Clancy Tripp
There are about ten days each year that the Tripp family spends all together. This, generally agreed upon by the Trapp family, is enough to last us the other 355.
Seized by Pamela Emigh-Murphy
I saw my dead sister sipping coffee early in the morning at Grand Central Station. I was scrambling for the train that would take me to Lexington and 52nd when I saw her leaning on the granite newel of the East Balcony staircase…
A Moon Story by Sarah Cedeno
There is an earthquake in Japan, and I hold my hands on my belly that seizes with the rumble of patting feet. The news warns of tsunami waves as close as California or Hawaii and as far as Japan.
Thunderstorm by Campbell Hoffman
“Mama, I do not like thunderstorms,” she declared with a whisper. And with wide worried eyes she told me how today, at camp, some kids told her that she could die if she looked at lightning.
Tornado by Feagin Jones
We lived in the black-veined mountains, because my father was a coal-mining engineer. Where my father and I saw comfort, my mother saw dilapidated houses, smeared on the sides of hills.
Sitting With the Storm by Christine Hale
On the other side of the stuccoed cinderblock walls, the unfamiliar howls: a hurricane, the first of four—Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne—that will maul Florida during the summer of 2004.
Southern Rain by Todd Sentell
You know it’s been a bad rain when you see so many dead frogs. I saw a lot of them along the side of the road. The air smells different during a flood.
