This morning, online literary magazine Five on the Fifth published Storey’s dramatic second-person essay “The Two Reasons You Wear a Black Suit to Church.” This narrative confronts the stories we tell about suicidal thoughts and behaviors, as well as contemplation of the future and the past. The primary lenses for this interrogation are Storey’s personal struggles with suicidality and the suicide attempt of a close friend.

Content warning: suicidal thoughts and actions.

The essay can be read in full here.

This is Storey’s third publication of 2020 and his 18th since October 2018.

Thanks to Editor-in-Chief Mahdis Marzooghian for selecting this piece, as well as to Megan Stielstra, who helped revise it through the Virginia Butts Sturm Writer-in-Residence program!