In Anonymity: Confessions from AWP 2022

At the AWP 2022 conference in Philadelphia, Autofocus shared a book fair table with The Hunger based partly on our shared interest in literary confession. We set a small box out on the table and asked visitors to write an anonymous secret on a postcard if they felt like it. The following is a creation made from fifty-three of the sixty-eight confessions we received. Some confessions have been edited for clarity, style, or to avoid the use of a specific person’s name.

I haven’t written in weeks.

I haven’t written in like a year.

I don’t know why I came here.

I am in the grips of an overwhelming existential crisis.

I drank a beer at 5am to go back to sleep.

I don’t love my parents as much as I think I should.

When my dad had his heart attack, I was more scared of losing the potential of the dad he never was than losing the person he actually is.

I don’t want to be my mother’s competitor.

I feel bad that I don’t feel worse about cutting off my mom.

My sister doesn’t know what our mother did to me.

I feel very unclean.

My dying grandmother asked for a cheeseburger before she died. I didn’t get her one.

When I was thirteen, I lost a close friend. I couldn’t touch his body in the coffin and I will forever regret it.

The most supportive person in my writing life was my beloved writing partner. He died out of nowhere at the age of thirty-four. I miss him. I’m afraid if I have another writing partner they might die too, so now I write alone.

I went to sleep at 10pm after spending three hours by myself on the second night of AWP and I loved being alone, but I still felt like I was missing out on all the fun others seem to have.

I sat alone in a corner of the hotel bar for two hours trying to work up the courage to talk to people.

There are 6,000 people here and not a single one will ever know me more than a name and face they will forget almost immediately upon leaving.

The first time I left the continent, I was detained at Heathrow airport and denied entry. They said, “We don’t need to give a reason. If we don’t want you here, we don’t have to let you in.”

I fucking hate Philly.

I was fired from my job for speaking truth to power. Power, unfortunately, won the battle. Fuck power and fuck poetry business.

I carry so much hate in my heart for old friends and I hope every day they get exactly what they deserve and more. It hurts and makes me hate myself.

Sometimes I wonder if my curiosity and interest in dead things and gruesome things goes beyond morbid curiosity and there is actually something wrong with me.

I am so hungover right now.

I have been high at AWP more than ever in my life.

I actually like the way asparagus makes pee smell.

My inner monologue constantly repeats the name “Dustin Hoffman.” I don’t care much for his movies and know little about him. No clue why I think about his name this much.

Whenever I see a person in the hallway, aisle, etc., and I walk past them, I cannot help myself, my body automatically responds with humming or a “hmm” sound!

I smacked a stranger who didn’t deserve it because I was gesticulating too wildly.

I stole two fancy pens from my friend because I think I deserve them.

I stole plastic horses from my friend to see what theft feels like and wanted to die afterwards.

I am sleeping with my best friend’s ex-girlfriend.

I’m in love with my best friend who is also my roommate.

I told my friend I’m over them, but they’re still so fucking hot, and they’re standing right in front of me, and I’m totally in love with them.

Every year I only come to AWP to see a friend I have been in love with for years who is in a relationship.

I don’t even want to stop being jealous.

I think I have found the love of my life. He changes my whole outlook. I am afraid that by the time he truly sees me, the love will be gone.

I didn’t feel loved until someone found me sexually attractive.

I’m in love with a boy who doesn’t ask how my day was.

I am absolutely not straight in a hetero relationship.

I am bisexual and my family has no idea.

Secretly, I want to be admired.

These past few days I made out with every single person in my press – thank you AWP fantasy fantasy sex love.

I said I want monogamy but I don’t want monogamy.

Long distance is killing me.                    

I’m so relieved my ex ditched me. I went on to buy my own house, become the strongest earth mama, and find my soulmate who I have the dreamiest sex with.

It took years of therapy to have sex without imagining (fantasizing about) my abuse during it. It’s taking years of therapy to have sex without crying. Sometimes I worry I’ll never have fulfilling sex if I’m not being harmed during it. How to be satisfied by kindness? I don’t know.

I know I shouldn’t think this, but I wonder if my mother’s rape caused my aromantic asexuality.

I spent almost the entirety of last night masturbating in my clean hotel sheets.

Sometimes I think the human connection I’m looking for doesn’t exist.

I’m a committed leftist who is wounded by my daughter’s defection from my gender, and I’m not allowed to say this out loud.

I’m afraid that my whole identity is a lie—that I don’t actually know who I am.

I’m scared to find out more about myself.

I can’t wait to get home.