Category: read

  • Apparition

    They approached in hordes and masses,screaming in throaty, strangled jubilation.A cloud of dust in the outer rimof our vision, the edgeof our flat, bare world. Meanwhile, we pattered through the halls,looked with moonlike faces up at the drafty rafters of the roof,the airy rooms, the gray light, the seagrass aroma. The grown-ups told us to…

  • today i am a lady

    I thought I was dead, butI was only dreaming.The red pigment stained my skinAnd I thought I had bled myself dry.But I don’t have even a little lipstick on the back of my hand when I wake,So I put some on to mark the skin andLet it smear as I go about my day. I…

  • From Me to You to the Apocalypse

    Excuse my dramatics. The world is so big and I can only sing my love in extremes, in nuclear roses and cursive armageddon, in ink that’s actually blood and paper that’s actually a sheen of zombie skin. If I say I love you like the stars then you will burn this letter without reading it.…

  • Future Requiem

    This world is making me bleed. Blood and tears and angry sweat, it’s all falling off me and it’s staining my clothes and cutting paths down my cheeks and no one who cares is allowed to do anything. We were told big words of freedom, of liberty and were dazzled by them until we learned…

  • Love Aflame

    Their first date they played Jenga with lit matches and pick-up sticks with unthreaded needles. The corner of his napkin caught fire and he whipped it dead. A hole opened in his palm, outlined with black powder. They smiled at each other and kissed, passing a lemon wedge between their teeth. Straightening their suits they…

  • Fourth Dimension Fairytale

    at all times i am dying. after all, we could not have seen the guillotine.we could not have seen the way the road gorged itself on unvigilant passerby& the vigilantes, too. the sky seemed a stranger to me. i could not speak for you as i once had; i could notpeel back the skin of…

  • Dear God

    Dear God, Last night I woke suddenly, startled awake by some small sound. I lay there, half asleep and frightened, thinking that perhaps it had been nothing at all, but a tiny crackling noise said otherwise. It was something else that made me pause: a human sound, a quick intake of breath. God, my doctors…

  • Sestina For Burning Bones

    it all started with a dress the color of stars. baptism of the color red. two worlds burning into desire. it ended with bones. the city only breathed stardust and sword hilts before your body turned blade. you covered my four fields with hoarfrost. I never knew cruelty until the day you breathed it into…

  • Sequins

    I remember Papa slamming the front door again and again, car engine rumbling to a start, his absence opening around me like a blade. before he left he told me he dreamed of sequin carved women littering the concrete like koi, limbs splayed glossy under the streetlights. now, while he dances in hotel rooms, Mamateaches…