Ludicrous | The Wild West | watch KHÔRA Salon
"The first time my husband asked me to open a jar of pickles for him, something loose rattled at the back of my rib cage, like a penny knocking against the side of a hollow can..."
Welcome to KHÔRA, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues. Scroll down if you would like your work to be considered for future issues.
NEWS
We’re on the lookout for new artists! Send links to your artwork to Khôra’s Images. Please forward the link to any artists who may be interested.
We’re still swimming in the afterglow of last week’s KHÔRA Salon. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here. Password: tJ1VL.7e
The volume didn’t play during the screening of J’aime Morrison’s short film, Upwell, and it’s really worth watching again with the beautiful soundtrack playing. Watch Upwell here.
Today we’re sharing two new essays; they’re both part of our recent Special Edition.
Special Edition Highlights
Cristina Olivetti is a writer, translator and educator. Her memoir, About Bliss: Fighting for My Trans Son’s Life, Joy and Fertility is forthcoming from Jessica Kingsley Publishers in October 2024. The piece, “Ludicrous” is part of her memoir in progress which is a meditation on marriage and mortality. She lives in Northern California with her partner, her kids and their four cats. Competent, compassionate at-home care for her husband makes her writing life possible.
Ludicrous | Cristina Olivetti
To be diagnosed with ALS, a patient must show symptoms of both upper and lower motor neuron decline. To lay people, this business of upper and lower motor neuron involvement is confusing. It is not like above the waist is controlled by the upper motor neurons and below the waist is controlled by the lower ones. That said, the lower motor neurons do control most of the body’s extremities, like hands and feet. This accounts for the fact that the first symptom many people notice is weakness in a hand or foot. A doorknob might be weirdly hard to turn. Out of nowhere a person might start tripping over their own feet. The first time my husband asked me to open a jar of pickles for him, something loose rattled at the back of my rib cage, like a penny knocking against the side of a hollow can…
Read Ludicrous.
Hannah Harlee is the founder of ARTWIFE, a digital literary and arts magazine. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sierra Nevada University, where she served as the managing editor and faculty advisor for the Sierra Nevada Review. Her work has been published in The Rumpus, The Normal School, Entropy, Hypertext, and Litro. She lives in San Francisco with her wife.
The Wild West | Hannah Harlee
My best friend lives in San Francisco, in a room in Polk Gulch that fits a double bed and a table for $1100 a month. Weekdays he gets up early and does manual labor, then walks to the Tenderloin to buy heroin when he has the money for it and Xanax when he doesn’t. This week, he has the money.
I’m staying at his place, just a few days until I can move into my new apartment. Tonight, he shoots heroin in front of me for the first time. I watch; I stay very still and keep very quiet, and when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I discover I’m holding both hands, open-palmed, to my face.
He finishes and sits inside his high for a moment, then puts on his jacket to walk to the Tenderloin and cop one more time. Before he goes, I tell him his fly is unzipped.
“Ah, thanks,” he says, and zips up. “All the junkies would’ve laughed at me…”
Read The Wild West.
We’ll be back soon with more beauty from our new curated teams.
Big love,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad
Swim around in KHÔRA.
Send us your work!
If you'd like to enter the collaborative open waters of KHÔRA, please send us 500 Words. If you’re a visual artist interested in submitting artwork or images, click here.
When you send us 500 Words, your words will always remain active in KHÔRA’s ocean. You won’t ever receive a notice of rejection from us. We know this process is not perfect—we are rethinking and searching, and we wish to stay open to the possibility that at any point, your work will be a fit for a curated issue or team-collaboration. This doesn’t need to be a completed piece—think of it like a sample of your work at any length up to 500 words.
Once you send 500 Words, your work will remain in our inclusive and expansive space.