Latest Stories

Most recently published stories in Psyche.

The South Facing Window
After months of ignoring it, my hip pain had grown to the point that I needed to seek medical attention. The usual pain relievers were no longer up to the task. So I started by asking a good friend of mine for help (who just happened to be a Medical Doctor). Unfortunately, she didn’t live close enough to be able to treat me herself, but she did have a recommendation for a good Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). After suffering a few more weeks, I finally gave in and made the appointment.
By Carolyn Fields5 years ago in Psyche
Cry
I’m angry. I’m so angry. I’m so angry that I want to scream, tear at my skin, break things. But all I can do is sit here and cry.
By D. E. Morris5 years ago in Psyche
The Ride
“This is how people go crazy or come sane, either one feels the same at first,” I think. I’m riding a buckskin horse whose name I don’t know along a dirt path in the middle of Reserve, New Mexico. Reserve, a town of nearly 300, is in the Gila National Forest on the Arizona/New Mexico border. I’m on a student archaeology dig with the University of New Mexico, and I’ve been camping in a tent near an arroyo for over 2 weeks. One other detail: I have 2 ½ months clean and sober and have never felt weirder in my life.
By Freckles Farm5 years ago in Psyche
Scattered
Fuck. My mind is a messy, whirling vortex of noise. In the time of writing those first two sentences I have since installed Grammarly on my Chromebook, becomes confused as to how to actually install it on, and started playing an ASMR video courtesy of Calliope Whispers. Whilst finishing this sentence I have since skipped the Grammarly app and simply downloaded the Chrome extension.
By JC Cansdale-Cook5 years ago in Psyche
A Little Black Book, A Big Black Bag and A Screaming New Beginning
There are many screams you can hear in the desert at night. If you dare face the silence with patience, sometimes you can discern clues to the unfolding story. Screams of love, terror, exhaustion, or exaltation. There are endless narratives that can be heard shrieking through the darkness. The real truth to those tales are known only by those from which the screams came from. For everyone else, they can leave it to the birds.
By Jessie Foley5 years ago in Psyche
The start
When I was little, I always thought that there was something about me that was not right. I used to look at other people in the classroom and I was confused that they were able to stare at the teacher or board and sit completely still without talking or doing something with their hands. I was always the shy kid at the back of the class that did not to talk to anyone except her friends (and herself) and fidgeted with a pen till it burst and would then spend 20 minutes in the toilets to try and clean it up. At least that is who I used to be.
By Ella 5 years ago in Psyche
Performers are not our Property
I don’t think I have anything new to offer on the subject of how artists’ lives can be ruined by an insatiable public thirst for their trauma, but right now, I’m fizzing with thoughts and feelings about it. Lately, op eds and news stories about the ‘Free Britney’ movement have been all over the media. There are so many angles that could be taken on the story, from a bit of salacious gossip, to voyeuristic coverage of a widespread conspiracy theory to an opportunity to examine and hold to account both the performance industries and media coverage of the not-so private lives of those in the public eye.
By Mo Ford5 years ago in Psyche
Productivity Guide for the Mentally Ill
Sometimes it is hard for a mentally ill person to muster up the motivation to get anything done. It is hard for the chronically ill to muster up that same energy. Energy is a force in your body that you can channel even if having too many goals on your to-do list causes you stress. I feel a stress rush in my head whenever I log into my online Wizardry school. That rush is worse with a regular school which is why I have kept myself away from my local junior college's website even if I feel I need to get a transcript that tells the sorry tale of how I overloaded myself most of college, which was a time filled with alcoholism and coffee addiction to cope with the stress along with massive sugar addiction.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez5 years ago in Psyche
Can One Create His Own Values?
Is one's mind not prejudiced and obstinately entrenched in the burrows of dogma? Be nice, pure, and kind, yes? With time, I have painfully conceded that niceness is a sham. Niccolò Machiavelli was aware of this, and in his book The Prince, he writes: "Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions." These words, I reckon, are radically redemptive for humanity. The reality of the nice and virtuous is in the limbo of deceit and treachery. Machiavellianism is the unscrupulous practice of duplicity to further one's cause. Unbeknownst to humans, their savior Jesus of Nazareth has predisposed them to the traditional Christian wisdom of niceness and blighted their comprehension. René Descartes needs revision. "I think, therefore I am" must be "Religion thinks, therefore I am."
By Saugat Menon5 years ago in Psyche
Is Targeted Advertising Turning Us into Addicts?
Social media has been on the rise in the last decade and with it has come some very unique changes to society. When I was a child, targetted advertising only existed on television. Depending on what time you watched and what channel you were watching, the companies would advertise appropriately in order to pick up the correct demographic. This was purely based on viewing statistics and nothing else. But with today's social media gathering data to the extreme, with websites knowing more about us than we do - has targeted advertising taken it too far? Is it now altering our conscious decisions on what we do day by day?
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Psyche
Angh
The sun dressed my skin in the warm glow of morning. 19th July- Afternoon In a small coastal town situated in the lower-right quadrant of a bay, is the space I reside in. There is no-thing in particular that gives me a sense of belonging here, here was just what was. There is the coastal town itself, a former decorated resort before the war economic changes in the form of gradual decline and globalisation lead to travellers going further afield. All that remained; stayed and slowly over the course of time what stayed, ceased-defunct. There is an enigmatic property to these rural towns, some untapped history of value, hiding in the sheer red cliffs and the lumbering pines that overhang them these giants rise above the shore, mussels greet the tide from their sleepy seaweed digs against vivid red sands which give way to abyssal calm waters, contrasting themselves to an endless sky. At dawn the sun rises skyward from the ocean-depths taking its mantle on the horizon, directly above a holy-white aisle only a fool would think they could touch the altar.
By Matthew5 years ago in Psyche
Alice In Wonderland
"I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think, was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I am not the same, the next question is, "Who am I?" Ah, that's the great puzzle!" ~Alice~
By Melissa Deutsch5 years ago in Psyche