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J.A. Bell

Two Points for Honesty

Two Points for Honesty

This morning, I’m thinking back to the time that an ex of mine, the one who brought me to Rhode Island and whom I dated for almost three years, played me the Guster song “Two Points for Honesty” and told me it was about me. If that’s all

The Summer Ends

The Summer Ends

And I had a dream, it blows the autumn through my head. – Dar Williams, “The End of the Summer” What is it about the end of the summer? This is how I think of it. This is how it reads, the voice in my head. It’s not the beginning

Postcards from a Wasted Youth: Episode I

Postcards from a Wasted Youth: Episode I

(This essay originally appeared in Whale Magazine. It was intended to be a series, but that didn’t come to fruition. This is the first essay in the series. Others were written and will appear here soon. – Ed.) I could start this at my birth, but that isn’t where

Losing My Religion

Losing My Religion

God is dead. I was in denial of this very obvious fact, like a man holding a still-smoking gun who can’t believe he had the tenacity to pull the trigger. There was no such immediate moment, however, when this realization came to me. One day he was there, and

Dancing With Drugs

Dancing With Drugs

The Italian kid next to me was electrically tense. In fact, the presence of him standing over me was probably the thing that made me the most nervous and was also the biggest factor that made me blow out of my nose nervously, spraying cocaine all over the kitchen counter.

Will McAvoy Isn't Real, But He Should Be

Will McAvoy Isn't Real, But He Should Be

“I’m a registered Republican,” he says. “I only seem liberal because I believe hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure, and not gay marriage.” No, it’s not Bill Maher—who is unabashedly a registered Democrat, anyway—it’s the anchor of cable news network ACN’s nightly news

On a Sunday

On a Sunday

9:30am. No alarm; my eyes simply open, and the act of focusing is slow and arduous. On these mornings, when I have little on a to-do list and even less of a plan of how to spend my day, even the process of awaking is slow and intentionally laborious.