I’m organizing my CD collection alphabetically by artist, like every Saturday. The Cranberries, Janet Jackson, La Bouche, No Doubt, Selena, the Spice Girls, and TLC are among them. I have a stack of cassettes by Michael Jackson, New Kids, UB40, and various Disney movies.
A cheerful knock at my open door catches my attention. Dad stands in the doorway, holding a semi-ripe banana. I assume he’s brought me a snack until I realize he has a condom in the other hand. I recognize the small, teal square with the white letters, just like the one I keep in my—
“I found this in your dresser drawer,” he says casually. (He’s referring to the condom, not the banana.) “I thought you might be curious about it.”
My face burns. So that’s what you do while I’m at karate? Dig around in my underwear drawer? Are you reading my diary too?! My secret hiding place has been plundered, but I’m too mortified to protest. I’m thirteen years old and just as many shades of red.
I don’t tell him I took the Trojan from his basement workbench, where he keeps odds and ends for his science projects. And I don’t tell him that having it makes me feel cool, like Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes from TLC, who wears a condom as an eyepatch in one of their music videos.
Pre-Sex Then:
We stand in the kitchen with a cup of coffee between us and the air steams with a heat all our own.
I see it in her eyes. We look at each other with a spark so potent it could burn the house down. She tries desperately to swallow the coffee faster, but it’s too hot. My hands go to her arms, her waist, curl into the hem of her shirt. I want.
I’ve hated every man I have ever slept with. A deep rage bubbling from within me. Rage at what they took from me, and how little it must have meant to them.
The light in my room is dim; it's going to rain again, and neither of my windows sit in the right spot to catch the source of the light. I’ve tried my best to illuminate the space, but it somehow always manages to feel like a cave of sorts. Like a lair. It's my lair.
No man has taken this room from me.
The summer after my dad dies is a slutty one.
I spend most of May haunting a neighborhood ex while his girlfriend is out of town. We trade plausibly-deniable texts and “accidentally” run into each other at Cobble Hill’s diviest bar. I sit on a wooden stool six inches too close to him, fully aware that my silk mini skirt has ridden up around my waist. I don’t bother adjusting it. We never cross any official lines, but the thrill of possibility is enough to feed the yawning hunger that eats through my gut at all hours.
The first time I touched their chest, I didn't know what I was doing. That's not quite right—I knew what my hands were doing. I didn't know what it meant.
We were in the Jeep, right after that first kiss. A kiss that undid me completely. A kiss that took me by surprise since we started by just talking the way we always talked, sentences that started one place and ended somewhere neither of us expected. It had been an icy cold January day and we were enjoying what felt like quiet even though the brewery was busy with families and beer and dogs and that post-holiday need for people to find something to do that was not Christmas and was not preparing for the holidays to end. Suddenly, we were looking at each other the way you look at someone when the conversation has moved into a register that doesn't need words anymore.
I left on a clear October Monday. Seated at the bulkhead, my elbow rested next to a man who asked if I was going to Chicago for business. I lied, nodding my head yes. Ambivalence prevented me from updating my second-generation iPod earlier in the day, leaving Missy Elliott and Usher to comfort me. A leathery skinned smoker picked me up at baggage claim. She drove me forty-five minutes to our rural destination while I imagined what happens when car doors open and bodies land on I-55 at seventy-five miles per hour.
I’ve always been a good patient—keep my jaw open even when it aches for the dentist, never flinch from the needle of a vaccine, and have thick, easy-to-find veins for blood draws. Maybe I learned it in high school on the soccer field; complain, and be benched. Maybe I carried it in my DNA, passed down from stoic Norwegian farmers; suffering is inevitable, better to keep your mouth shut and your eyes towards God.
My mother remembers one less, but I remember seven. Seven places I called home outside of Nanny’s trailer. Each move had its own life and timeline complete with characters and climate, seemingly separate from the world happening at Nanny’s. Seven times I packed my “101 Dalmatians” suitcase and cardboard boxes of pictures. I gained a little more makeup for each move: a new sheen lip gloss, glitter nail polish with chunky stars, Hot Topic eyeshadow, the limited edition Gerard Way palette that glowed bright red. Puberty marked by moves.
My cellmate at the correctional center that I had been transferred to six weeks after the guilty verdict, or cellie as we called them, was trying to teach me how to survive my final transfer—prison. Lucky for me. She claimed to have spent four years there. But this time she was only going to empty instant espresso packets down her throat and pace around the tiny box with her swishing Rapunzel hair in jail instead of prison.
The city lights blurred as I drove to the hospital. Mt. Spokane sat on the horizon, its slopes and lifts hidden in darkness, a silent witness to my brother’s sudden fall. Hours earlier, he'd grabbed his snowboard and driven to the top. Now, he lay braced and broken.
Part of me rehearsed the what-ifs, ran scripts about what could have been. I pushed these thoughts away, wiping the blur from my eyes. I couldn't create a second emergency. But few drivers were out, streets icy from a fresh storm.
All of them had been so sudden. Death. Now you see them, now you don’t. That was my experience of the deceased, the ones closest to me. Mother, father, sister, brother, brother. With you through their time on earth, then gone in a flash. Departing like lightning.
On my thirteenth Halloween I stayed over at my dad’s apartment on the other side of town, and for hours, well into the morning, we watched a live taping of a paranormal investigation on the Discovery Channel. The host was blond and the psychic had an earring and they were somewhere historic in the UK. The night-vision camera gave the TV an eerie green glow, the blond host had big eyes like a doll; we were rapt with attention. There were sightings of children who’d passed and mothers in cloaks and fathers who walked about in suits. Tapping and knocking and tiny objects making incremental movements. Orbs abound. EVP recordings.
Mary Catherine was sixteen when she was diagnosed with liver cancer and barely twenty-one when she died. I traveled to the depths of despair after she was gone. I found my way back by convincing myself I’d never have to return.
I was wrong.
Looking through the gallery of the dojang I take a seat and fixed my eyes on my son. Justin bowed and stepped onto the mat. He had perfected his poomsae and was nervously excited to complete his belt test in hopes of being promoted from a yellow to orange belt after months of practice. Proud parents flowed into the room in anticipation of the event. A tide of chatter rose above a sea of phones that was primed to capture each child’s accomplishment.
Kneeling beside me, Dad tears the wrapper and pulls out the white rubber circle. His mouth is moving, and I’m sure he’s speaking, but I hear nothing as he positions the translucent balloon over the tip of the yellow-green fruit. This isn’t happening. I pray for my sister to walk in, for the phone downstairs to ring, or for me to spontaneously combust.
I want to cry out that he’s got it all wrong. That I had zero intention of ever using the condom. That I can’t bring myself to even speak to boys, much less get near their bananas. That Todd from Social Studies once tried to talk to me, and I hid in the girl’s room for half a day. But my lips are suddenly numb.
I dissociate, reciting the lyrics to “Waterfalls” by TLC in my head. My friend Kim can recite the fast part. Kim is short, so we call her Lil’ Kim, like the rapper. I used to have a Lil’ Kim CD, but it mysteriously went missing. Then I found it in a shoebox in my Dad’s bedroom closet, along with my Missy Elliott CD. He doesn’t know that I know...
“And that’s how a young lady can protect herself from getting pregnant,” I hear as he wraps up his lesson. He tosses the condom and wrapper into my pink flower trashcan, peels the banana, and devours half of it in one bite. “Any questions?”
I can only stammer in response.
“What are you listening to?”
I glance at the cassette in my hand—the Salt-N-Pepa single of “Let’s Talk About Sex.”
“The Pocahontas soundtrack!” I lie, shoving the cassette into the stereo boombox I got for Christmas.
“Well, don’t forget to clean your room,” Dad says, standing up to leave. “It’s chore day.”
No, I won’t forget to clean my room, Dad. And I won’t forget to clear out my underwear drawer.
-Laura Plummer
This product gives you access to all four weeks of the workshop. Purchase one or more drop-in sessions here.
Build a habit in 20 sessions. In this 4 week workshop that meets Mondays through Fridays from 8:00-9:00 AM CST, we will focus on generating new writing—making headway on a current project, reviving an old project that’s been gathering dust, or writing based off of the daily prompts Leigh provides.
The first 45 minutes of class are a gentle, camera-off, silent writing session. The remaining 15 minutes are an opportunity to share excerpts of our work, reflect on progress made, and set intentions for the following day. Then we will read a passage together on the writing life and close each class with a new learning about habit formation. By the end of this course we’ll have a morning writing habit that is each our own to continue and build upon.
This listing is for an individual class. To purchase access for the full 4-week workshop, click here.
Build a habit in 20 sessions. In this 4 week workshop that meets Mondays through Fridays from 8:00-9:00 AM CST, we will focus on generating new writing—making headway on a current project, reviving an old project that’s been gathering dust, or writing based off of the daily prompts Leigh provides.
The first 45 minutes of class is a gentle, camera-off, silent writing session. The remaining 15 minutes are an opportunity to share excerpts of our work, reflect on progress made, and set intentions for the following day. Then we will read a passage together on the writing life and close each class with a new learning about habit formation. By the end of this course we’ll have a morning writing habit that is each our own to continue and build upon.
Many writers feel drawn to write about their lives but struggle with uncertainty: Why this story? Why now? And who is it really for? This workshop is designed to help writers move beyond doubt and toward clarity by focusing on the deeper meaning and purpose beneath their story.
In this interactive, craft-forward session, participants will be introduced to the Memoir Compass, a practical framework that helps writers articulate their motivation (why they are writing), mission (who the story serves), and message (what meaning or insight the story carries). Through guided reflection and writing exercises, participants will begin shaping a personal narrative rooted in intention rather than overwhelm.
This workshop is ideal for writers interested in memoir or personal narrative, as well as fiction writers drawing from lived experience, who want to move forward with greater confidence, focus, and direction.
Laura Plummer is an award-winning American poet, essayist, and filmmaker from Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online publications. Visit lauraplummer.me.
I remember one time when he was fucking me from behind and I caught sight of my earring falling out and landing on the couch beside me. The earring wasn't the problem—it was a large chandelier, glamorous, well within my sight line. But the tiny silver back was another issue. Did she even wear earrings?