The Bathroom

I locked myself in the bathroom. Even though I made myself untouchable, unreachable, all I wanted was to be saved. As I laid down on the tiles, facing up towards the dangling florescent light, I craved death. I don’t mean absence of living—quite the opposite actually. What I really wanted was death to what was inside of me, to the illness that spread from my brain into my entire body, the illness at the core of all the pain and torture I put upon myself. I craved death because I wanted a life, a different life.

True StoriesKristina BuschNovember 12, 2025father daughter, family, Alzheimer's, lossComment

The Girl & Her Organs

She offered her first organ to a boy with a strip of film tattooed around his wrist.

True StoriesMolly StitesSeptember 24, 2025dating, romance, loss, heartbreak Comments

Someplace Humid Near Orlando, Florida

We had a tradition for birthdays: a call once it was midnight so that we’d be the first of everyone else to groggily whisper our well wishes for each other. It started as a promise from me that I’d do it every year for you, no matter what I was doing, who I was with, or how tired I was.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumAugust 13, 2025love, high school, loss, relationships Comment

Murder, Girl

The brick-arched doorway houses two twin wooden doors. It smells of early-summer piss. Under the marquee, a small blue and white sign reads, "Air Conditioned." But it's a lie: the club will be sweltering.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumJuly 23, 2025identity, loss, youth, music, art, high school, fear, hopeComment

Swaddled Together

The night before my mother’s funeral, I assured my niece I wouldn’t cry. “I’ve shed all my tears,” I told her. “I’ve practiced what I’m going to say until I’m dry.” She nodded, clearly skeptical.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumJune 11, 2025loss, family, sister, distanceComment

Sorry for Your Loss

I lost my mother on Christmas Eve. Colored lights twinkled up and down the block as I arrived but her window was dark. A pile of mail in the hall. Television on, cold coffee in her mug. The radiator banging away. The tree was half trimmed and the cats were prowling around the apartment crying, unfed. Overflowing ashtray. Cat
toys and dust balls, empty bottles of bourbon.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumJune 4, 2025loss, grief, mother, daughter, holidays Comment

Dreams in Color

Cold. Alone. Dead. These were the few words that registered among the many spoken to me on that horrific afternoon when they came to tell me my son was gone. Fentanyl was added to the mix over the coming hours.

“Who? What? How?” repeated over and over again was all I could muster in response.

“We don’t know,” was their answer.

My living, breathing nightmare had only just begun.

True StoriesKristina BuschNovember 15, 2023motherhood, death, grief, loss Comments

Juicy

On the dock beneath a Wolcott summer house, you show me how to cast. I flick my wrist and it goes nowhere near as far as yours. By means of sarcasm we agree it’s not the most vegan thing to do. Later by the fire, you hear the splitter splatter in the water as I roast a marshmallow in the din of our friends’ chatter and guitar tunes.

“They are taunting me,” you say of the fish, “can you hear them?”

True StoriesKristina BuschOctober 5, 2022love, relationships, lossComment

Personal Essays

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