They die. If you tell the truth. Sometimes slowly, sometimes on the spot. It depends on the truth being told and it’s weight. The heavier it is, the faster it flattens bone into fragment, pulverizes pulse into a bloody pulp. The first time it happened was on the morning news, live. The camera panned across a generic studio audience to the show’s co-anchors, your typical man and woman duo. The man was tailored tight into his fancy suit, grin taut […]
They come. They always do. The sea brings them to me. Swallows them up and swishes them from cheek to cheek before spitting them just shy of my shore. The only haven in sight for miles. Mama used to say with a smile. Any port in a storm, my little minnow. I didn’t understand, at the time, why she smiled so widely nor why it prickled me so. There was an…edge, to her grin. Something cutting in its curl. Sharp. […]
“‘…there is no story at all; there are only readings’ (124)”. I don’t know why WordPress is throwing my links all over the page like this. I had to cut a bunch of links to make the post remotely legible. I’ve tried many different things to fix the problem and I think it’s just a system error for the time being. Believe me, I’m annoyed about it too >.> Flux & Flow So…. I’m back at it again. Doing the ELit […]
“‘…there is no story at all; there are only readings’ (124)”. Flux & Flow So…. I’m back at it again. Doing the ELit thing, writing the feelings whatever those are down, being “insightful”… You know, the usual. Anyway, let’s get down to business. I don’t remember what I thought of Jessica Pressman’s “Navigating Electronic Literature” the first time I read it eons and eons ago but this time around, I found it to be thought-provoking, informative, and intellectually engaging. The article articulates […]
What the Professors did not know when they turned the whole world into a glass eye is what would reflect back. See, they made the eyes out of mirrored glass. Covered spires and lampposts, windows and concrete with tiny, shiny eyes–always watching, always showing. Without pupils or irises, they seem to follow you, act out your life in their little sclera screens for you. Beads of silver beneath moonlight–darkness the only safe place, now. Reflected back, we saw how small and easy we […]
Drumbeat batters breeze bare-knuckled. Bloody, if it could. Tut-tut-tut transforms the atmosphere into something tormented. Tortured. Just a sliver shy of a scream. I sway to the sound, skin soaking in its scathe. Absorbing the maim and claim. The tug and tear. In the thick of the crowd, illuminated by a mix of fire and faint moonlight, a figure fights the drum’s beating. Twists sharp turns to thwart possession. To prevail. A losing game. Once lured in, that’s it. Other figures clap, […]
So, my laptop managed to make a miraculous recovery. *killjoys make some noise~* She’s a real trooper. Anyway, that means I finally got around to playing with sound. And, to being frustrated by it. That said, I didn’t really feel a strong pull towards any of the not-to-do-list prompts. I did really like reading one of my works aloud in class this past week, though. So, I decided to run with that and record myself–again–reading my story. Only, this time, with some added sound […]
Behind the barrier are bits and pieces, shards of shattered glass, fragments of battered bone, a girl in slices of herself, writing each down, committing the splinterings to memory through word weaving, through cathartic construction of confession into bite-size commodity for consumption–predominantly hers. Beyond the threshold is Pandora’s reverse–curse–a home for holdout hope who couldn’t escape so stashed her whole self away. Endlessness encapsulated. The opposite of liminal space. Comprehension rendered obsolete in the face of an open door, an invitation to […]
“See.” Auntie would hiss, breath-half mist-half piss–spit splattering across my face like soggy freckles. “Don’t you see?” Spittle soaking deep into bone, I’d bob my neck up down. A metronome kicked on its side. But that was never enough. My compliance meant nothing till it suffered. Till I suffered. Till I looked. “Can’t you see?” A banshee-screech that bounced off mirrored glass like my small skull in Auntie’s gargantuan grip. Bang. Bang. “I see.” My raspy exhale fogged the glass. “See […]
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. ~ Edgar Allen Poe Mama went in her sleep. How she wanted. How she dreamed. Death is an illusion. An imagined end. Mama rasped toward her own foreseeable ending, breaths short and shallow. We don’t live here. We live inside. When you dream, my little ghost, look for me. I will be there. So I did. When Mama moved on from here, I searched–inside. Reached into the recesses. Haunted […]
Part I, Part II, Part III, I’ve become accustomed to being watched. Hollow, sightless eyes boring into me from beyond. Gaping gazes trying to swallow me up, their seeking ravenous for every last scrap. For anything that could fill the empty spaces. Make them a little less like windows without torches. It’s ever-night where they are. Nana said one evening while I was studying the intricacies of incantation intonation at the table, her knobby knuckles knocking a suspiciously rhythmic beat against the window’s wooden […]
