Nonfiction Issue #7: Mental Health April 15, 2021 Bipolarations by David Martinez he second time I was taken to a counselor was during my freshman year of high school in Puerto Rico. The school insisted, saying the only way I would be able to advance to sophomore year was if I saw a professional, was diagnosed, and was put into the homeroom for special cases. When asked about it not long ago, my parents said ...

Nonfiction Issue #7: Mental Health April 15, 2021 COVID Helped Me Grow My Garden by Catherine Kenwell ince the early days of COVID, my front-yard garden of brightly colored paper hearts has become well-known in our community. I’ve posted cutout neon hearts that read things like “Look at you with your COVID hair, you’re gorgeous!” or “Hug your bubble,” or my family’s favorite, “Don’t stand so close that we can smell your farts!” Because I’m ...

Nonfiction Issue #7: Mental Health April 15, 2021 Sorrow: Surviving a Son’s Suicide by Susan Wight lift up the faded brown T-shirt and gather its softness to my face, inhaling the scent I’ve known since Rion was born. The one he had when I first reached for him in the delivery room and nuzzled his fuzzy head—that sweet and sour mix of milky warmth and puppy belly. I think I could recognize the still-familiar, ...

Nonfiction Issue #7: Mental Health April 15, 2021 Rising Above by Martina Kontos held the blade of my nail scissors to the fleshy part of my thumb, tears streaming down my face as I debated whether or not to cut myself. Even though I badly wanted to, I wasn’t depressed, and I didn’t hate myself. No, nothing of the sort. My illness had started months earlier, with a single fleeting thought: Are those drivers ...

Nonfiction Issue #7: Mental Health April 15, 2021 Embracing Hope Through Six-Foot Balloons by Shannon Heath Parkin e live in virus-imposed balloons, each with a radius of six feet. Drifting apart from each other, we remain connected in our search to alleviate the uncertainty and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have been alone before, adrift in a sea of questions. In 1984, at the age of seventeen, I fell twenty-five feet in a hiking accident ...

Nonfiction Issue #7: Mental Health April 15, 2021 Feeling of Impending Doom: aka Why I Will Never Own A Gun by Michael P. Moran o you suffer?” Normally when I’m naked in the locker room no one addresses me. It’s as if the removal of clothes issues a protective cone of silence. A stranger had penetrated my cone. This was a new experience. Back in high school, the showers traumatized me. I entered that vast tiled ...

Nonfiction Issue #7: Mental Health April 15, 2021 April 15th, 2021 Inexplicable by Mickey Greaves remember the doctor had a big face and a receding hair line. He looked like his name: Moorehead. I could see his features up close because he bent down to peer at me. I was nine years old and petite. He wore a dark suit and smelled like my dad. It had been three years since I’d seen my father, ...