Grad School: A Horror Story

"Back," I cried, popping the whip from behind the wooden chair. The lion paid me no attention, shaking its ratty locks and yawning. The wave of his fishy breath would have knocked me over, had I not ducked behind the chair again.

Suddenly, the television behind me switched itself on. Good lord, I thought, I haven't seen this movie in over a decade! I dropped the whip and sat down on my chair. It was rather more comfortable than it looked. The lion called from the kitchen, "Do you want some popcorn?"

Then a commercial came on, and I decided to get to work--for real, this time. I booted the laptop and fired up the word processor, but to my horror, every icon I clicked brought up a new browser window. Tumblr kept updating, and I became Twitter famous. Then the lion's friends all wanted to become friends with me on Facebook, and they all wanted me to help them meet goals in those annoying browser games.

Luckily, my phone rang at that very instant. It was my best friend from college, calling to tell me all about her life as a stay-at-home mom of four. I put her on speakerphone and poured myself a stiff drink. The next thing I knew, it was four a.m. and the lion was dragging me gently to bed.

And that, my friends, is why I did not complete my section of our group assignment. Now, who's ready for Margarita Monday?

--
For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Michael gave me this prompt: ​"The history of my life is the history of the struggle between an overwhelming urge to write and a combination of circumstances bent on keeping me from it." -F.Scott Fitzgerald. I gave Jester Queen this prompt: Malaise.

Inverted Jenny

It is no good now, to relegate me to your desk, its rolling top accordioned down over aching limbs. You have crumpled me into a bundle of letters, long faded and tied with dusty ribbons.

In the old days, it was a brush, a teardrop tuft of some soft fur. You painted intricate characters on my skin and the ink slipped sweetly between us.

At dawn, I watched you scrub the tint from your hands and wished for an end to all mornings.

When you grew weary of darkness, the sharp nib of your fountain pen scratched indigo myth into my back, and red-ballpoint corrections flowed down each side. Once, you left a discourse in green marker, your declaration of independence stamped boldly at my waist. I thought that one true. It was the quickest to smudge, though your verdant prints lasted for days.  

Those nights of calligraphy stained me. Cuneiform shadows rise from my surfaces still, copper-brown or the cerulean of tranquil seas; but each dawn you returned to someone else's senses, ink trimmed carefully from your skin.

I am as patient as parchment, out of place, but I remember. However you inscribe me, emboss me, engrave me--by morning, the end of dreams is written plain.

--
For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Michael gave me this prompt: "'Think of writing as writing a letter to someone.' -Kurt Vonnegut. Write about mail, or post offices, or postal workers, or writing and receiving letters."
I prompted lisa with: "Pressing business, tonight at the brocade factory."

Musica Universalis

Summoned, they stand in a line. Their eyes are fixed firmly on the floor beneath their predecessor's feet, the finely figured black-and-white tiles laid over wide, cold space. They are not frightened of the empty spaces between the tiles; they do not quail at the rushing constellations that pass within inches of rough, bare flesh. Oh, she loves them, the Ophanim. Her children, the living embodiment, the material crossroads of imagination and desire.

She is safe in this space--space is a hall made of calligraphy, cradled in a lotus inscribed with the nine thousand names of the holy. She is the bearing upon which time itself balances, and every avatar, every incarnation stands, patient, waiting for her direction. She reclines, listening to the distant murmur of women.

When Lailah wakes, the scent of burning sugar mixed with perfume still hangs heavy in the air. She pulls her makeshift bedroll closer. The floor creaks gently as she curls under the window of the abandoned house, the stars keeping watch. She grips a dirty twist of waxed paper in her left hand, singing under her breath:

"I will make a new clay bowl and inscribe it with the names of those who have cursed me, I will fire it in the flames of the house of bondage and the house of weapons until you call back the curses, until you call them back in the names of the angels, until you bless in the names of the angels, until you repent in the nine thousand names of the holy, amen amen, selah."

She spits between her forked fingers and pulls the pipe from her sleeve. Her thin, pale fingers scrape the sticky black opium from the waxed paper, rolling it into a ball. She sticks it to the pipe and lights it, placing her lips to the mouthpiece and breathing in prophecy.

Selah.
--
For the Scriptic Prompt Exchange this week, Chelle gave me this prompt: "Time stood still as he/she watched..." and I gave lisa this prompt: "Puffy and Tina."

Apokálypsis

Here is a story, or maybe a song. 
One night in the house of pollution,
the house of unrest:

I ran from a sky on fire,
but this is not what I remember. I pushed open a rusted door,
screened with silted crossed wire,
studded with iridescent wings, pushed past a yellowed
notice. The words are lost, but the carpet was green

with moss or damp, missing decades hanging heavy in the air
and the end was in us, the end was with us even then.

We were there, in that lampless waste.
There was no sun to throw our secret shadows into relief,
hands touching behind the cream-laid screen, faces close together
And there was no moon to hear any whispered word.

The dream was dark. I ran on the dead,
tracked my heels and crushed resin scent away from the trees,
and I woke speaking.

I woke to find myself lost.
I sat up to sing of the end.

Thirsty Work

A bit of good news for the crickets and dust around here (and my remaining readers--hello!):

First off, a lovely chunk of poetry manuscript has been accepted for Chromatopia's upcoming collection. That will be published in 2013, but it's worth the wait. I promise. You can read about the other poets being featured as well, here!

Second, although I have a rather greater number of grey hairs than before beginning the project, the Tiny Book of Tales is finally formatted for the Kindle, and due to my outlandish ideas about e-book prices vs print prices, it's less than half the price of the print version. The Kindle version will be available within the next few days, if you are interested!

Thank you to everyone who has already supported me, and to anyone considering it in the future.

Holy stars. We are in the future and it is amazing.

precocious

Some claim April rain
brings the blossoms of May, but
trees here are hasty.


This is the opening stanza of this month's format challenge over at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. We're writing a renga together, and I'm so excited to read the finished result.

occultation

My walls were empty, the balcony swept,
all paints the color of the white roaring noise in my head,
and then the epiphany of loss.
I poured ink and chalk over my shaking hands,
dolefully smudging signs in every color,
lyrics rising from the pale,
the hieroglyphics of my life without you.

That was the year I locked all the doors, pouring vodka into the cuts,
eating only the memory of your tears. I wrapped my bleeding limbs
in bandages and silk scarves, threw blades to the floor and
caution to all the winds.

Now I have been longer without than within,
and yet, in the scent lingering upon my hands,
in the sugar and ash upon my lips, you remain.
In the deep trough of the night where I lie,
rocked on sleepless waves, in the hollows of
my skin your shadow dwells.

Après moi

The strawberries are red lips, glistening in the bite marks, freshly glossed and plump. She catches herself staring at the half-eaten one dangling from her shaking hand and sets it cautiously in the saucer. Her teacup is just to the side, sitting in a ring of milky runoff, the pale tan soaking into her grandmother's lace tablecloth. Scattered strawberry leaves, still attached to garish red chunks, discarded like a tiny pile of skulls on some barbaric grassland.

She would pour herself another cup of tea, but the pot is cold, and the cream jug is in shards next to the antiqued baseboard beneath meticulously restored sash windows. Instead, she wipes her berry-stained fingers on the ruined tablecloth and rises, bare feet whispering over bare boards. She steps out of the sunroom, onto the neat grey carpet of the parlor, and when her footfalls grow silent, she might as well be gone.

The note under the sugar bowl remains, edges ragged with haste, a mute affirmation of months of suspicion. The blue ink scrawl, square and cruel, rattles latches in the darkest hour of the night.

In the carefully-appointed guest bathroom, she puts her small fist into the mirror they bought in New Orleans, silver-backed shards sticking in her knuckles, blood falling into the sink. Just droplets, at first, and then the deluge.

Trust is not porcelain, shattered once but potentially reparable. Trust is a dam that holds back everything we would rather forget.

--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Leo challenged me with "I trust you to break my trust in you." and I challenged femmefauxpas with "Please write a flash fiction story (600-1500 words) opening with a character stating, 'That's not enough,' into the phone and hanging up. There should be at least 580-1480 words after that opening. In addition, please ensure there is a clear ending to your piece. No 'to be continued,' no vignettes, no continuing characters."

clear skies

Old cat suns bones
on new carpet, already mottled,
Stippled with palm shadows.

Hello, world.

The day has finally arrived, sailors and sirens. My dinky little chapbook, hand-illustrated and Xeroxed in the first edition, has turned into a glossy china dish encrusted with the coral of the intervening years.

Which is just a silly way of saying, hey. The Tiny Book of Tales, second edition, is available for you to purchase, should you so desire. It's 20 poems, dredged from my many years of struggling to find the right words for everything. They're rough-edged, and I didn't want to polish too hard for fear I'd lose what they meant to me, every grey day, every long year until now. They're different, but, I think, still true.

If you are looking for a bit of history and context, you can find the Tiny Book of Tales on Amazon, or grab a copy from Lulu. It's a pleasure and a privilege to turn the page from that chapter to this one, with you.

Thank you.

Grace

Spring-heeled Jack

This time of year again, full and floral in its certainty,
grates against my spine. The paper moon hanging behind
pale pink blossoms illuminates nothing but the aimless drift
of true north in my flesh, the brass key twisting, iron wires wrapped tight.

It's you, my personal four-minutes-to-midnight, dragging
this compass through no-man's-land. It's barbed wire alone separating us
from faded summer, shredding me like tissue while I survey these new coordinates;
diminishing your High Priestess of escape into mere avoidance adept.

The damage we do to one another is legendary, mirrors cracking
from side to side as we pass, seven times seven years of bad luck latching on.
All that longing after mutually assured destruction, now banked in ash,
the baleful ember of at least one crisis averted.

Still, your silhouette draws me in. Your shadow leaves me wondering through
every sleepless, jasmine-scented dawn. Is this love, or aftermath? Twisted metal
stained with red, the street covered with gems of shattered glass; perhaps it is loss
I feel. Or perhaps it is only the sound of another clock, ticking quietly toward the end.


--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Bran macFeabhail challenged me with "Crisis averted." and I challenged sparrow with "I say. Bad form, old chap."

Changeover Cue

Possibly triggering; mildly graphic, domestic abuse, sadism, uncomfortable situations.

Gosling

Face pillowed on her strong arms, she dreams. The long muscles of her legs twitch as she races around the long-vanished track, outpacing her girl-companions. They are all mothers, now, in the waking world. Even her, once. Now, though, there are only the dreams, brilliant tapestry patched together out of a thousand memories. After the race, a feast, the feast decreed by her father for the winner, roasted meat and bone, slick fat dripping onto the coals of many braziers and ascending in smoke to the gods.

In the way of dreams, by now she is no longer in her racing garb and no longer a child. She reclines comfortably at her father's table, the scent of the black broth, prize of warriors, wafting from boiling bowls, the edge of her hunger growing sharp. In this moment, she is refined, a precious blade from the north. Honed to perfection.

Here in her room, she is no longer sharp and ready, but curled loosely upon the cushions. Her well-muscled hands twitch after the dreamfood, and her rose-tinted lips part, a coral blush rising in her full cheeks. Her breath comes short now, and her muscles strain toward unfathomable delight. Her servants, her guards, turn away, fearful of visions sent by jealous Aphrodite, but we gaze on.

The table is set, groaning with the dishes of her youth, and she tucks in, greedy with long deprivation.

Soft and pungent cheese, drizzled with amber honey. Precious oil carried from the Athenian groves, golden-green and thick, grassy on the tongue. Crumbling wheat-cake and chopped herbs. Grilled figs, sour-sharp olives, tender meat and crisp pomegranate seeds. Wine, oh, wine, black like the sea until mixed with water from her favorite spring, wine that flowed redder than blood, redder than crimson, redder than madder-dyed cloth.

Twice-abducted Helen sleeps through the long, hot days. There, she cannot know regret for her vanished lifetimes. There, in the memory-court of Tyndareus, she devours the bread and wine of dreams. There, no husbands or suitors, no ill-tempered gods, no daughter and no siblings torment her with obligation, and even in the midst of war, there is no one who would grudge her this escape.

--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, The Lime challenged me with "delicious food is involved", and I challenged Lance with "Detective Puppy and the Case of the Missing Knickerbockers".