KNEE BRACE PRESS

A place for stories about chronic illness, disability, mental health, and neurodivergence.

grief

  • A white woman with short, white hair sits on a black couch with two small dogs in her lap. She wears a tank top with a leaf pattern and turquoise pants.

    Elastic Woman Stretched Too Far

    By

    For poet Diane Funston, aging means she can’t always catch loved ones from falling the way she used to, but maybe that’s ok.

  • A white woman with short, white hair sits on a black couch with two small dogs in her lap. She wears a tank top with a leaf pattern and turquoise pants.

    Origins

    By

    “Poetry found me/aching for a voice.”

  • A white nonbinary person with short, brown hair wearing a gray sweater. They smile with their mouth closed and have a nose piercing.

    To Mend Infinity

    By

    In To Mend Infinity, poet Kate Matesic shares their experience of losing abilities as their chronic illness changes and progresses.

  • An interview with Tatiana Schlote-Bonne

    By

    “Without the doppelganger, I think Such Lovely Skin would still be an interesting (albeit less entertaining) story about grief and self-forgiveness, and those kinds of horror stories where the human component is still really compelling without the monster are my favorite. The monster just heightens everything that’s already there.”

  • Vulture

    By

    “Our love laid thick and bitter on my tongue/I choked it down as not to spit/I laughed so not to lunge.”

  • A white man with shoulder-length white hair and a white beard.

    True Enough

    By

    “Her dying happened in slow motion, like in a/dream you know is a dream but you/can’t wake up from.”

  • A white man with shoulder-length white hair and a white beard.

    On Deck

    By

    Alan Abrams writes about grief, love, and baseball in his latest poem for Knee Brace Press.

  • A white man with shoulder-length white hair and a white beard.

    For Rief

    By

    In this poem about grief and death, poet Alan Abrams tells us what it’s like to watch a friend fade away, knowing you could be next.

  • A white woman taking a mirror selfie. She is smiling at the camera. She is holding phone, which is purple, and wears a shirt with Adam Driver's face on it several times over.

    Stitch by Stitch

    By

    “I’ll spend my whole life/Disentangling from you/That’s all fine/I can handle it.”

  • Invalid Invalid

    By

    Eli Underwood is a writer, organizer, and archivist living with CPTSD, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and Long Covid. Read their poem, Invalid Invalid.