family

Family can be our support system. Or they can be part of the problem. All about the complicated, loving, and difficult relationship with us and the ones who love us.

Leaves of Three
The white cane was pointing toward a small Moleskine journal in the middle of the sidewalk, as if they’d been placed there, combined. Felix looked around for their owner. Cars moved up and down the street. He saw a woman scan the traffic and hail her Uber, but then nothing.
By 5 years ago in Psyche
Violent Silence
It was his third time at my house that day. Each time was more aggressive, angrier and more violent. I was beginning to fear him but more so fear for him. We were not strangers. I knew his patterns and techniques of manipulations, but he was bound to come across someone else. Someone with a fuse as short as his. I knew what he wanted, and I knew who he wanted, but my patience was wearing thin as he continued to bang on the door with my six month old trying to sleep. My husband wasn’t home so reluctantly I went downstairs to my mother’s basement apartment to tell her “He’s out here again.” We paused for a brief moment to see who would fold first. Would she finally come up and give him the ten dollars he was asking for, or would I return to the door, for the third time empty handed.
By Nicole Franklin5 years ago in Psyche
One Selfless Act
“What are you up to, brother?” “He plans to destroy them all.” Brother and sister, closest than any of their other brethren, stood side by side staring down at humanity as they scurried around living their lives completely oblivious to the forces controlling their future.
By SJ Nichol 5 years ago in Psyche
The Experiment
Lucas pushed open the heavy oak door and found himself in an ornate foyer, glowing with sunlight from the vaulted windows opposite him. Despite the room’s magnificence, it held an unsettling stillness that set Lucas on edge. For the hundredth time, he studied the partially crumpled pamphlet in his right hand to make sure he had the correct address. 824 Walden, this should be it, he thought, though he was still doubtful. The trials he signed up for were usually in university or office buildings, not mansions in the middle of nowhere.
By Tom Hummer5 years ago in Psyche
Be Careful What You Wish For
I thought that I could understand the world, that I could grasp it in my hands and manipulate it, the way my family taught me since I was a child.
By Eva Myers5 years ago in Psyche
Notebooks and Nightmares
I shut my eyes for probably the twentieth time that night, desperate, longing for even a few minutes’ worth of rest. 3:13 AM.
By Stephen Acosta5 years ago in Psyche
Actaeon
‘He didn’t have to read it.’ That was her consolation after Julian’s…accident. Merging onto I-91, Katelyn didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t her fault—it couldn’t be. When she received the letter eight days ago, she couldn’t possibly have known what would happen. But her father? Could he have known? When he wrote, ‘I’m dying, Kati. These will be my last words to you,’ did he also know how she would choose, or what it would do to Julian?
By Robert Bailey5 years ago in Psyche
A father's rights
“Hope, you evil little thing,” she thought to herself as she reached out with her open palm positioned just below where the moon hung in the sky.
By Benjamin Kibbey5 years ago in Psyche
A Slow Burn
Growing up with a narcissistic mother can leave untold damage. Especially when you don’t realize the trauma that has been a constant burden until you’ve reached forty-four years old, thriving in life. Or so you thought.
By Emeline Scrivener5 years ago in Psyche
The Body
Many times I’ve dreamed of running into a large sum of money, or finding a suitcase full of cash. Well now I was lucky enough to find one, and lugged it around with me.
By Chato Urbin5 years ago in Psyche
Review of ‘Familial Complexes in Individual Formation by Jaques Lacan’
Preface The situation of myself, primarily as an interviewer at PAWS has led me to write to and exchange correspondence with a variety of professionals involved with design, theatre to the culinary arts. Often the selection of which of the interviews would make it to the magazine was a bone of contention between the management and me. For reasons best known to others, the management has chosen to conceal the circulation figures, as well as not heeded my request to include a letters to the editor section. In the absence of any mechanism of feedback, to discern the reception of our articles, and to perhaps make a space of exchange regarding the process and criteria, not merely of the selection of articles, but also their form – which to my eyes need not be relegated to interviews alone, I seek to continue my prior study of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory.
By Arsh K.S5 years ago in Psyche
War Games
When I was 5 or 6, before my mother became abusive, she had a boyfriend who lived with us named KB. KB took us to a drive-in movie one night.
By Byron Hamel5 years ago in Psyche