Walkable City by Miriam Gershow

He was standing at the corner where we met every morning to walk to work because we were young and carless. I had gotten on a train and moved 2,000 miles for a walkable city. He had always lived…
He was standing at the corner where we met every morning to walk to work because we were young and carless. I had gotten on a train and moved 2,000 miles for a walkable city. He had always lived…
Content Warning—self-harm and/or suicide attempt When I visit from the states my cousin Marco becomes wind. In the car to the restaurant where our mothers wait he’s all curls dancing, all cheeks stretching, speeding so fast I’m sure…
People will say Ry must have planned the robbery for weeks. They’ll want purpose and emotion and strategy. They’ll say she had a gun tucked into a pocket. They’ll say she must have been desperate: four kids at home…
Sunday. None of the puzzles here have all their pieces. The coloring sheets say HAPPY EASTER or HE IS RISEN—it’s January—in that swoopy bubble font usually exclusive to Sunday school worksheets. The staff never remembers to set out new…
My dead Aunty May visits me while I assemble the baby’s crib. Her pale blue fingers catch my wrist while I’m twisting the Allen wrench to secure the right side panel. Delia, my wife, is at work. Aunty May…
In the gathering dusk of an afternoon that still lingers, I followed my father into the woods. He had not prospered in his first attempt to start a nursery business, the crimson-budded azalea liners withering only days after he…
My Favorite Elvis The boy and the dog were both named Elvis. Whenever Daddy hollered “Elvis” they both came to him. Even when it was one of them he wanted: the boy for a chore, the dog for a…
CRAFT is thrilled to welcome Alan Heathcock as guest judge for our 2022 Short Fiction Prize. Heathcock is the author of Volt, a collection of short stories from 2011, and 40, a debut novel that publishes on August 2,…
Content Warnings—cesarean section, traumatic birth I could not milk. Was it due to upset levels of oxytocin, prolactin, beta-endorphin? May have been the morphine pump I kept firing like a trigger from my hospital bed in the postlabor/delivery room.…
We had gone to bed late, on usual terms: “Let’s just talk about this in the morning.” That night we did what we called “No Touch Sleep,” a nickname for exactly what it sounds like, lying next to each…
“Roach Farm” is about the fall of 2020, a period of intense national and personal unrest. The chaos of COVID, the election, and the general doom-fog felt separate from the chaos of my work and relationships. But, in writing this essay, I started to understand that the external and the internal were actually in conversation the whole time, behind my back.
I chose to work at the roach farm because I thought it might offer an escape. I’d be working in a remote warehouse, laboring over bugs—what I thought to be an apolitical life form—alongside strangers. But still, there was the ghost of politics in most of the conversations there. By the end of my tenure, even the roaches felt symbolic of gender issues.
In the fall of 2020, I wondered about my belief systems and what to do with them. I was constantly attempting (both with great self-consciousness and great ego) to figure out where I fell on the spectrum of being a person who cared about the well-being of the world. This attempt was complicated because the only problem actually keeping me up at night was a breakup. It was my first real breakup with my first love. It was excruciating.
This past year. I’ve been reading a lot of amazing braided nonfiction books and essays: Jia Tolentino, Carmen Maria Machado, Jo Ann Beard, Karla Conejo Villavicencio. I think it’s incredible when an author winds narrative and research so tightly together they feel like one story. “Roach Farm” is my attempt at braiding three stories at once: Dubia roaches, the politics of existing in 2020, and my breakup.
I read somewhere that if what’s on the page doesn’t scare you, you’re doing it wrong. With this piece, I set out with the goal to pursue honesty until I scared myself. So, here I am, totally scared.
JT BALDASSARRE is a freelance writer and filmmaker living in Brooklyn, New York. In 2020, she won the James E. Michael Prize in Playwriting. She just finished filming a pilot, and is currently writing a four-part miniseries. She is also developing new personal essays and nonfiction pieces. Find her current work and contact information at her website linked above. She’s on Instagram @jtbaldassarre.