Hope Henderson

Passages North • 16th March 2026

American Robins [short story]

I thought my new aloneness might kill me, the utterness of it, the black hole of my stomach sinking down through the bed and pooling on the floor at midnight. It was a lot to leave him knowing I might die. It was a lot to know I would rather die than stay with a man like that...

Electric Literature • 8th September 2025

Poppy [short story]

Through her, I could see that behind the seeming randomness of the world, an intricate, beautiful, and almost geometric pattern held everything up...

River Teeth 26.2 • 1st June 2025

How to Survive a Plague [essay]

I could feel my sneaker glowing around my foot, an ominous glow, a glow that felt violet and nearly radioactive... *content note: mental illness

The Indianapolis Review • 11th February 2025

The Monk [poem]

When I touched enlightenment,/ everyone swelled from two dimensions to three/ like a pack of long balloons/ inflated and flexed into poodles and giraffes/ and reciting the stories of their lives...

The Indianapolis Review • 11th February 2025

For Darwin [poem]

...She was a perfect/ beast. The lion who/ slays the cubs he/ didn’t sire...

New Delta Review • 3rd June 2024

Meeting Point [narrative nonfiction]

There is something hot in the middle of Hannah’s chest, something like an ember. I could see it back then, kind of glowing up and through her cheeks like a flashlight behind fingers...

phoebe • 2nd February 2024

Jealousies [narrative nonfiction, NSFW]

I see the twin bed, and the bright, woven blanket. I see her whiteness spreading under you like spilled paint, and you, slim and tan, moving over her.... *Content note: sex, casual misogyny

JMWW • 15th October 2020

Lost and Found [narrative nonfiction, NSFW]

John had my windpipe in his open hand, in the crook between thumb and forefinger. He squeezed and my blood throbbed against the resistance... *Content note: sex, BDSM

Off The Coast • 15th June 2020

Mercies [poem]

When my mother told me what my father did,/ or might have done,/ I woke up the next day and of our conversation/ could only remember my own child-words

Hobart Pulp • 5th December 2019

Sticky [flash nonfiction, NSFW]

I had anted up already: pics in the too-small bikini top he liked, back arched in his favorite Brazilian-cut bottoms... *Content note: sex

The Rupture • 15th August 2019

Making Right [poem]

Even when the good drug/ pushed through/ the tubing and needle/ and his writhing/ body finally unbuckled....

Lunch Ticket • 14th June 2019

A Compendium of Earthquakes [narrative nonfiction]

1. The first one was in the egg shop. I was a baby, strapped to my mother’s back in a blue nylon carrier while she wandered Kotwali bazaar...

Pidgeonholes • 17th May 2019

At the Reunion [prose poem]

Do you have kids? No, but I drove across the country and followed handmade signs to FRY BREAD near Albuquerque...

Lost Balloon • 30th January 2019

Shopping For One [prose poem]

The woman in front of me puts a single chicken breast in brown paper, an ear of fresh corn—its green and sugar scent is loud here—and one baking potato on the belt...

THE HUNGER • 15th January 2019

Mouth [narrative nonfiction]

The tomatoes I grew up with in New England were mealy and anemic, and their gooey innards polluted the lettuce in our nightly salad if mixed too vigorously. I picked those pathetic, pale slices out of my salad...

Mojave He[art] Review • 1st November 2018

[3 Poems]

I am that girl I used to see Out of the car window That woman sunk into a man On the back of a motorcycle...

Jellyfish Review • 25th July 2018

The Third Place [flash nonfiction]

As usual, there is no one else to do the job, so I buy myself soup and pomegranates and pears and one Sierra mountain apple and four cans of food for Sophie and lay them out beautifully on the black conveyor belt...

The Citron Review • 17th July 2018

The Flaw [flash nonfiction]

Would this story work better if I said that he hit me? What if I told you it didn’t matter that he didn’t hit me, that it wasn’t any different, really? *Content note: Mentions of abuse & SA

Hypocrite Reader • 6th September 2016

Colorado River [short fiction]

We walk so long the soles of our feet ache. I recall a cartoon about a weary Paul Bunyan dragging his axe and carving up this ground. I need to keep seeing the river around the next bend.