“I identified as a heterosexually-inclined bisexual when I started giving hand jobs for money, and I left more or less a lesbian. It wasn’t the only factor in that transformation, but boy was it a major one.”

There is joy here. I have dreamed of this 100 times, prayed for it twice as many.

Narratives of violence and abuse are so familiar in our history and culture that we hardly notice them. Corinne Manning shares what it took to notice and transform these narratives in their own fiction and their story collection, We Had No Rules.

I would spend many hours trying to diagnose the emptiness Amanda left in her wake. I had lost something, but didn’t know what. Surely there’s a queer space on the page for stories that lack a middle?

In a country that hates immigrants, every day immigrants are on the front line of imagining and enacting another world: One where they can safely live with basic dignity, respect, and protection.

We were just friends the first night she stayed over. I only had a single bed and there was little choice but to press our bodies close together: one big spoon and one little spoon. My desire for her followed me around like a lost dog. It would scratch at the door, whining and begging to be let out.

It takes effort to choose an ending. It’s a lot easier to get back together, to catch a flight, to miss a flight, to fuck someone else. It’s easier to be with someone until you hate them than to walk away with love.

“I told myself that moving was not going to actually fix my life, that living in a different state didn’t mean that my personality was going to change. It wouldn’t fix my depression and anxiety. I told myself this, all the while secretly hoping this move did have the power to fix me, to break me down to an elemental level and rebuild me.”

When it comes to my queer desire, my favorite feeling is a juicy lack — I don’t have the person or thing I want and that tastes like salted caramel perpetually not in my mouth. The distance is not only enjoyable, it’s my edge, but sometimes it feels like there’s something missing.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Tip #2 – “Don’t Trust the Internet.”

Church leaders wielded the idea of “the will of the Lord” in ways that forced me to surrender power and agency — but when I started reading tarot, I found a new way to move through the world.

On refusal, rest, and resistance.

Dive into this fantasy based world where the merqueen of the springs spreads her wings and takes up space.

Considering the discomfort my friends and loved ones experience when we travel together, or when I share what I think are unremarkable experiences of microaggressions or discrimination, has helped me understand the degree to which I’ve normalized things that are not normal.

“I used to lie about my age to get deals off the kids’ menu. Like, why would we pay an extra five dollars when we all know I’m about to get chicken tenders and it’s only an appetizer if I’m over twelve??”

You’ve probably seen billboards advertising an exotic trip to the country where I was born. In those pictures, the sea is always a clear turquoise – like glass – and the sand is always blinding white, and the sky is always a clear stretch of blue that takes your breath away.

When my wife walked out on me, we’d had a trip to Austin booked for months. We decided to take it anyway, and this is how I remember it — and us.

Astrology was too complicated. I decided to place my trust in Co–Star.

One time my ex took us on a weekend getaway to a notorious suicide hotspot so that I could take a video of them breaking rocks on the beach with a very small hammer.