Addie Citchens Reads "The City Is a Graveyard”

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1:48This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker. On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Addie Kitchens read her story, The City is a Graveyard, from the March 16, 2026 issue of the magazine. Kitchens is a Mississippi-Delta-born, New Orleans-based writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her first novel, Dominion, was published in 2025 and was long-listed for the Penn Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Center for Fiction's first novel prize. Now here's Addie Kitchens.

2:27Addie Citchens:The city is a graveyard. It is late August, at the time of day when the air in New Orleans is heavy, hard to take in and harder to let out. You press through your jog, feeling as though there is a cloud in your chest. You run to clear your mind and to keep your perimenopausal ass from sagging to the backs of your knees, not that you feel it's effective for either purpose. By weaving around the tourists on Decatur and into an alley you are able to find a bit of relief from the heat and the crowd. A melody floats from Jackson Square halting you in your tracks. You know the song but hindered by the urgency of the guitar and the singer's complicated arrangement you struggle to name it.

3:19Addie Citchens:Then you are hit by another song, booming from a new performer, and accompanied by the sound of his shopping cart rattling over the cobblestone street. You take the time to contemplate this tune as well, and as you do so, the moisture that has been lurking just beneath your skin is forced through your pores, causing your eyes to sting and your t-shirt to cling to you. Although the heat has everyone dealing with some degree of dampness, sweating is often a source of violent embarrassment for you. You wipe your face with your t-shirt, look around to see whether anyone has noticed your discomfort, and spot a handsome young man watching you with the slightest of smiles.

4:04Addie Citchens:He discards some trash and moves in your direction with a sure stride. He is, up close, even more striking. Gaze is tangled, sound mutes, time bends A handful of seconds ache like history You soon realize that what you have read as flirtation is actually recognition You know him and he knows you from the inside out His probable age fits the timeline And you've never seen that dark, rusty complexion on anyone but his father's people something in the erect way he carries himself is yours though and also the mouth which is saying something you don't catch his confidence is palpable whereas his father was a poet whose hands trembled when he peeled you an orange or when he gripped his notebook while practicing the terrible spoken word he was so passionate about fear ruffles through you then love or maybe pride that this ball of cells you thought you flushed away forever in your dorm bathroom has miraculously persisted.

5:13Addie Citchens:Your son, who has passed you and continued on, aptly makes his way through one of those ghost tour groups and disappears from view. Blurry-eyed, grappling, you find the nearest bench and sit before you crash. Your breath comes out in an abrupt burst as you have been holding it. A habit that you've developed according to your tarot reader Kiki because your birth chart is heavy on fire and earth placements but no air. The man with the cart has rolled about his way but the guitar in Jackson Square well zone and still you cannot remember the name of the song. But this comes back to you at once. The overwhelming uncertainty of being pregnant at 19.

5:58Addie Citchens:the fact that it had happened was a shock even though you had been doing what it took for it to happen the poet was poor and beautiful tragically romantic in that classic November Scorpio fashion he would have been useless your options were either to have the baby and struggle to pay for it and school in a place where you knew no one or to return to your dusty hometown and get hired on at the post office with your parents who hadn't wanted you to go to college at all, let alone in the city they likened to Gomorrah. You could have raised your kid with their grudging help until some country south belly divorcee came along to ask for your hand.

6:39Addie Citchens:You could have dished up his bacon and doled out his blood pressure medicine. You could have lain patiently beneath him, bartering your body for validity, for security. You could have given him more babies in addition to the two or three he already had. Maybe you'd have saved enough to go on vacation once a year. You quickly decided that neither of those options would work for you. You had no abortion money, no savings of any sort, and the poet's poverty further solidified your decision to do what you had to do. Your method was partly instinctual, partly gleaned from older girls from home who have found themselves in trouble that way.

7:22Addie Citchens:Every morning, you fastened yourself into two girdles and one of those neoprene waistbands and ran, harder than you ever had in high school track. Then you went to your job at the campus bookstore and looked around the heaviest boxes you could find. You worked so hard, you were named employee of the month. This was one thing you'd hold on to for the rest of your life, this hardy work ethic. Whether it was at the odd jobs that put you through undergrad or the career track work you did during your practitioner program, it was always a penance of sorts. On the day that you were honored at the bookstore, the supervisor rewarded you with a huge ice cookie while you were on break.

8:06Addie Citchens:You were trying to eat that super sweet ass cookie when the cramps started up. By the time you got off work, the spotting had begun, the shifting inside, and it gave you the same sparkly feeling you'd had the first time you were on a plane. You went to your evening class, even though you felt like you were going to die. The bathroom. You used the one on the floor below your room, had a row of showers, and a long tub, which only the girls who didn't know any better used. At least the water got hot. In the midnight hour, you drew the heavy beige, odd-smelling curtain around the tub, eased yourself in, and attempted to soak away the ever-worsening cramps.

8:50Addie Citchens:Feverish, nauseated, you had to get out to puke up the cookie and something that tasted bitter, like aspirin. Alternating between the toilet and the tub, you were finally able to brace yourself in the stall until you felt the core of this thing passed through you. Afterward, you dragged yourself up the stairs and fell into bed. The next day, the RAs called an emergency dorm meeting, which you accidentally attended after work. The topic was the blood in the second floor bathroom, which Mrs. Val, the maintenance lady, had had to clean and disinfect. You were slipping right through the meeting to go upstairs when one of the RAs went, 304, could you stop and listen to this for a minute?

9:35Addie Citchens:All eyes were on you. You felt certain they could see through your clothes to the evidence that was still flowing from you, but mostly you felt guilt for leaving a mess for Mrs. Val. You had just been tired as hell and sick as a dog, or you would have cleaned up after yourself. Now you wonder whether your kid's spirit hijacked the uterus of another woman. It could have been Mrs. Val, or maybe the poor girl who discovered the carnage, or maybe the alley you just jogged down to get away from the tourist was a portal to another dimension, one in which you'd made less selfish choices, like the cephalopod you read about who bruised her eggs for more than four years, and those words you hadn't quite caught from your son or something like, I'll see you this evening, mama.

10:25Addie Citchens:What you cooking? You are involved in a memory or a daydream in which you are setting an elaborate Christmas table for your alternate dimension family when the bulky shadow of some random guy falls over you, jolting you to your senses. You freeze. You okay, ma 'am? The words pluck your eardrums. alarm turns to annoyance. One of the most irritating things your 40s have brought is an unnecessary tendency for people to call you ma 'am. When you don't respond, the guy continues, I said this lady is much too beautiful to. The word lady you hate even more than ma 'am. You turn on your charge nurse voice and say, no thank you.

11:11Addie Citchens:I'll leave you alone then. I sure appreciate that. Ten years ago or so, you were being dragged to a second line by a friend when you saw a set of twin girls in matching blue eyeglasses, holding hands and playing around. They had big bushes of hair and seemed weird in the way you were as a kid. You guessed that they were anywhere from seven to ten years old. inexplicably your eyes sought them out again and again in the ever-moving crowd washing them made you push back a pair of glasses that weren't on your face glasses you hadn't worn since having LASIK years earlier your mind blurted out those could be me and John Doe's kids had you passed through a portal that day too had those girls been yours You place a hand on your belly the way you did when you were 25 and full of hope at seeing those lines pop up on their test, and you foolishly thought that you and John would have a long, exciting life together.

12:16Addie Citchens:Cue the happy women on the commercials, unsuspecting or deluded about all that could come as a result of a positive test. tooth loss, melasma, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, resulting in a stroke that can immobilize you in a permanent birthing position, even death, in childbirth or before, if you were especially unlucky, like Lacey Peterson or Adriana Smith. John had the thickest, darkest hair you'd ever seen on anyone, which would explain your twin's hair, and you hope his ass is bald now or better yet dead. When you told him you were pregnant, he responded that super moms got it done on their own every day and you would too.

13:01Addie Citchens:Because why would he want to raise a kid with somebody he met at a clothing optional club who had slept with him approximately 45 minutes into knowing him? Was he not aware that he slept with you too? Or that he was the one who said he loved you first? Like the third time you saw each other? Had he forgotten that? Or that by the second week of the relationship, he had all but moved into your uptown shotgun? No one you knew would have approved, but you didn't really talk to your family, and you had mostly cut your friends off. You didn't want to have to explain to them that you saw nothing wrong with being upfront about your desires.

13:40Addie Citchens:Did the speed with which it had happened discount the love you made, the months of playful codependence you cultivated? because the two of you had met naked there was nothing unrevealed right in the movies and in fairy tales nobody was penalized for falling in love at first sight the truth was not everything had been revealed about yourself but especially about him like the fact that he was the type to circle your house for weeks as if you wouldn't recognize that rickety truck from a mile away knowing how it had rocked on its poor shocks just from the motion of you making love in it and that he was the type to repeatedly dump trash in your strip of yard and spray paint baby killer on the side of your car as if he himself hadn't also decided to abandon the kid.

14:29Addie Citchens:He was egocentric and vindictive, totally unreasonable, but what did you expect from a March Aries? You decided to avoid the whole sign from then on. But still, you could not turn off your desire for him, for his body, and his danger. You brought your first gun and went back and forth between wanting to blow his brain loose or yours. Even more than a year later, after you got a therapist, you toyed with the idea of offing yourself in him because the relationship had been the abrupt end of your naivete. It was like he'd invited you into paradise and then pushed you right back out and slammed the door on your heels.

15:11Addie Citchens:John had been your first heartbreak, the one that let you know that love could exist for you only if you did it right, which meant being secretive about yourself and your desires and being rigid and full of rules, lacking in spontaneity. your rightness will earn you a compressed airless spiky situation like the one your parents had John Doe whose real name you had vowed never to utter again had made you understand the edge in your mother's voice when you asked her how to know if you were in love the weary way she shaking her head at your question had you feeling as if you failed a big test what's love she said but a secondhand emotion.

15:55Addie Citchens:Your mother would know. In high school, she'd been voted the kindest girl, and it seemed to you that she had been determined to live up to that for the rest of her life, no matter how badly other people treated her. She'd had six children for your father, who was a hard man at best, but had been held on wheels since your older brother died. Every time your mother calls, you hope that she wants to tell you not how faithful she's taking care of him, but that he's finally lost his battle with misery. You wipe your face on your t-shirt again, grateful that you chose a dark one for today's run. Using the back of the bench to steady yourself, you stand and try to jog again, but your legs won't cooperate.

16:41Addie Citchens:So you sit back down where you were, but turn your eyes to the spot where you saw the day open up and swallow your son. You recall that your first need after releasing him in that dorm bathroom had been rest, and that then, when you finally rose, you wanted meat. The poet had had all sorts of dietary restrictions that you follow along with him, and when you were done with all that, your body craved flesh. You got a steak and ate it to the bone, fat and all. You think of the third time the embryo created with your ex-husband, whom you'd married because he was the dentist you'd met at one of those black folks in white coats events.

17:24Addie Citchens:What else would he decide to withhold from you? And how much would you be willing to accept to keep it together for the kids? In the end, his sure inattention to your pleasure was what made the decision for you. You think your mother probably has never had an orgasm, Well, you would not dare ask. The last time happened after a friends with benefits situation with an extremely buck August Leo, who was in his late 20s, 10 years younger than you. He was in EMS, so fresh-faced and energetic. Well, that had occurred for several reasons. Because you deserved all the pleasure after your ex-husband. Because 8 p.m.

18:06Addie Citchens:is the longest hour. because you were no longer young and you knew you'd never pass that way again because you wanted to feel the vigor but you didn't want to pay for wanting to feel the vigor because how many morning after pills could you pop without experiencing some of the stated side effects and of course because you had paused your therapy for a minute in order to justify making questionable decisions if you could sum up your reasoning for it all you say you were irresponsible possible. Ask the 43 houseplants you killed over the years, or Clyde, the dog you let loose to play at the park and forgot never to be seen again.

18:48If you want to go deep, you could say that life is a

18:51Addie Citchens:wild, silly ride when you're out here yearning as hard as you were. Certainly, you didn't want to pass that yearning on to your babies, nor did you want to deliver to them the traits that you yourself couldn't control, like your mother's complacency, which was probably buried in your gene code somewhere, or the poet's haplessness, or your husband's nonchalance. Or perhaps it was because on this timeline, you chose yourself. Over and over, you chose you. You'd be remiss, however, if you didn't mention how much you adore babies. Pediatrics was your second favorite rotation and you respect kids' right to be and thrive so you reject regenerative AI and minimize your consumption.

19:40Addie Citchens:You thrift and reuse and hope that the planet won't burn them alive. You have always loved the idea of being a grandparent, but to have and to hold a kid of your own is the scary part. Then again, perhaps all of these are just excuses, monuments to nothingness as you've been taught, and perhaps you are simply a callous woman, a freak, a murderer. Your mind returns to the stake, perfectly seasoned, and then the melody you heard that brought you to this moment. If the quarter has nothing, it has songs floating from everywhere, raw, tender notes that a heart knows it has to hear and forget. I'm back, a voice says.

20:26Addie Citchens:Who are you, you snap, but immediately regret it. It's the guy from earlier. He is not so much handsome and stunning because of his size. More than six feet tall and large and sturdy. The John Henry type that can pick you up like a Folgers cup. You shiver with the possibilities. Can I join you? Your answer is halfway between a nod and a shrug, which he takes as a yes. He is a working man, but his smell is unexpectedly soapy and cool. He lands beside you. His weight shifts in the bench. It is a weight to be buried under, to squirm beneath. You're the fancy type, he says. Fancy where, you ask, pinching the drenched t-shirt off your belly.

21:14Addie Citchens:A fancy mess, maybe. I've been in and out of that building repeatedly, he says, and even though I've been watching you sit on this bench talking to yourself, you've been posed up so elegant, like a ballerina. It ain't what you have on, baby girl. It's your aurora. You start to correct him, but decide against it, getting caught up in the journey you've taken from ma 'am to baby girl. It makes you want to take him home, drink until your legs are putty, and be put through the mattress. But you remember what your therapist has told you, that likely, due to the harshness of your childhood discipline, your gauge for safety needs recalibration.

21:55Addie Citchens:Here is coconut water, he says, handing you something cold. You probably lost plenty of electrolytes out here. You check the seal and look for pinholes. It came right from the store over there, he says. I ain't that type. Deeming it okay, you crack the carton open, sip, and then down it. There is a hint of mango, your favorite. I told you, he says. You want another? When you finish the second, he asks your name. You scramble and then decide on one. Roxanne, you say. Roxanne Miller. Well, Miss Miller, I'm Tori Ingram. You don't look like a Tori, you tell him. You look like a Vernon or an O 'Neill.

22:40Addie Citchens:You say this without considering the fact that you yourself are not a Roxanne. Tori's expression flickers then settles. What's that supposed to mean? You intended it as a compliment. His name seems flimsy in comparison to his build, his presence. But you don't think he'll take that explanation well, so you say nothing. You silently admire his hands, scarred and large, and think of how they might feel on you. Are you dangerous? he cracks his big hollow sounding knuckles a gesture that seems to you unnecessarily dramatic his look is far off and then he returns his focus to you what good is a man that's not he says then so are you married you say you are not married have no kids how did that happen he acts genuinely stumped.

23:37Addie Citchens:A divorce and plenty of abortions, you say. And it's funny you ask because I thought I saw one of them today, my first. He walked right past me and disappeared. I mean, he looked like me and the father and everything. That's why I've been sitting here. I can't tell what's what. Tori slash O 'Neal scoffs. And you ask if I'm dangerous. You sound psychotic. I'm not psychotic. My heart told me it was my son. Then why didn't you run after him? Why didn't you say something? You ask what would have been the right words. He is quiet for a minute, but you can tell he is thinking. His brow furrows and his hand grasp your knee the way someone would to brace you for bad news.

24:25Addie Citchens:He says, you're a serial killer. You're seeing ghosts because your body is a cemetery. You ask his birthday, figuring he has to be a Virgo. You're not about to try to analyze me with that demonic zodiac mess, he says. You laugh and snort at the same time. There will be no squirming tonight. Where are your kids, you ask. Are you married? My kids are with their moms. Good women, he says. The word good comes out with a boom, of course, with the implication that you are not included in this number. It is your turn to scoff, but of course he wouldn't understand. A man is a hero if he manages not to piss on the toilet seat.

25:10Addie Citchens:So I guess I'm not baby girl anymore, you say. He wags his head, further signaling his disgust. Do you not wonder who will take care of you when you're old? Who's going to wipe your butt? You wonder why you are selfish for not wanting kids except under the most ideal circumstances, but he is not selfish for thinking he's entitled to have his kids wipe his old ass. You say maybe you will adopt. You are brought to your senses, this time by squawking and the rapid beating of wings. Tori slash O 'Neal has left. You are alone on the bench. Nearby, pigeons are fighting over what car finally appears to be a chicken strip.

25:55Addie Citchens:A beautiful thing happens in the scuffle. Feathers float and land on your shoe. You scoop them up. Good luck, you think, and jump to your feet. The sudden movement sends the birds fluttering away from you to watch and wait. You unbutton the pocket of your sweats and place the feathers inside. You smell soap and your day flashes before your eyes and you feel good as if your confession and sweat have cleansed you and you can quit therapy again. Unnecessarily dramatically, you shuffle a little in place and then bounce off one foot and into an easy jog. You are a little more than three miles from home and there are several different routes you could take.

26:41Addie Citchens:If you head down toward the river, there will be music and if you go to a bourbon there will be music too.

26:59That was Addie Kitchens reading her story The City is a Graveyard. This is her second story in The New Yorker. For more New Yorker fiction audio try the New Yorker Fiction Podcast where we invite writers to choose stories from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month, Danielle Muinuddin reads Two Pilgrims by Peter Taylor. You can find that and other New Yorker podcasts in your podcast app. If you're a New Yorker subscriber, you get access to all episodes of The Writer's Voice, ad-free, and everything else we publish. Award-winning journalism, criticism, fiction, and poetry, plus games and cartoons.

27:34For an early look at new fiction, poems, and exclusive author interviews, sign up for the weekly Books and Fiction newsletter at newyorker.com slash fiction. This episode of The Writer's Voice was produced by John LeMay. I'm Deborah Treisman. Thanks for listening.

28:00Hi, I'm David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. At this year's Academy Awards, Timothy Chalamet and Tiana Taylor aren't the only major nominees. The New Yorker will be there, too, with two nominated short films, which you can watch at newyorker.com slash video. Two People Exchanging Saliva was executive produced by Julianne Moore and Isabelle Huppert, and it's set in a dystopian Paris where kissing is illegal. Our animated short film Retirement Plan follows a man as he dreams about all the things he's going to do when he's done working. You can enjoy both of those films and our full library of acclaimed short films at newyorker.com slash video.