At Granta, Marian Ryan pens a longform essay on rationalizing abuse, the vulnerability of the body, the failures of compassion, and being stalked on Facebook.

“there wasn’t much to it
the smell of mornings rain
on a steamy street”
 
A slip of paper, a relationship failing, a short poem.

At FiveThirtyEight, Walt Hickey commissioned a poll to solve, once and for all, the thorniest wedding-etiquette conundrums (including plus ones, who to invite, and who’s expected to pay).

How do we really feel when someone unfollows our blog or our Facebook account? In this personal reflection, Andrew Reid Wildman unpeels the “layers upon layers of emotion that can find themselves interwound with social media.”

“A relationship of a paper receptacle
With its four corners, glued folds
A flap that awaits closure
With many words waiting to be
Understood”
 
A poem by Elan Mudrow.

“That was that, a beautiful boy passing in and out of my consciousness. A rare solar event, spectacular to witness but never to be glimpsed again in this lifetime.” When you never actually meet, a perfect stranger always remains perfect.

From Tinder swipe to breakup in five short, sweet, sad vignettes: an online dating snapshot.

Upon turning 40, screenwriter-turned-novelist Sean Carlin writes about friendship, learning, and the value of slow, gradual growth.

“Despite my resentments over the secrets I had to keep and the care I was obligated to give her growing up — despite anything else at all — she is still my mother.” Jane Demuth writes about her complicated relationship with her mother.

“I was not only civil, I was gallant, / or as gallant as a girl should be / to the man of steel when he’s a molten mess / and weighing down one end of her couch, / muttering random slanders to the lamp.”
 
Whimsical verse recounts a late-night visit that reveals a superhero’s hidden side.