I’m bad at being an invalid, so I keep / angel teeth in my pocket and crunch / them up into dust
writer
Publication Alert
My flash fiction piece "Wellspring Wandering" was published by Bait/Switch, which is a unique journal because it is intensely interdisciplinary and collaborative. My piece was inspired by a sculpture by Victoria Rosenblatt which was inspired by a previous piece put out by the journal. Another neat fact about Bait/Switch is that the editors conduct interviews … Continue reading Publication Alert
Madonna & Child, Delayed
Her knee jiggles. Incessant anxious energy has made its home in her veins, moving through her as steadily as blood. Today, though, the anxiety is a physical manifestation as it plays on her nerves. It is a violation of spirit.
Creative Accountability
fter two straight months of no rest, I have at last arrived on the other side. All of my creative projects are still here, unfinished, and yearning to be more. No more excuses to be found or conjured; there’s only work.
Projects in Progress, pt. 1
Every year, the master’s students I work with at Harvard give a five-minute presentation on the work they’re doing out in the field. It’s a hard thing to encapsulate months of work in that amount of time (though three or four always go over their allotment), and I admire them for it. Really seems to focus their attention; to help them hone in on what’s important. In that spirit, I will attempt to do the same for myself and those of you on a path of creative exploration and growth.
Another Year, Another Novel
This blog has seen a lot of me. More than that, it’s seen a lot of my work. Over the last four or five years, I’ve written hundreds of pages in the way of essays, poems, operas, spoken word albums, obituaries, short stories, and novels. Every line, every word has been a real piece of me, a real piece that I place in a basket and send down the river hoping that it will arrive to some distant shore. I’m never really sure what I hope to happen after that. I don’t have many expectations for my words (letting go of outcomes is a mental shift I’ve been trying to make for awhile, to varying degrees of success), save one: I hope they do good.
Artistry and ADHD
Maintaining motivation is hard. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and it sort of put my whole life into perspective. The diagnosis doesn't really change how I feel about myself, but is more of a "huh, I learned how to cope really well" sorta thing. Pandemic time threw all of my skills right out the window because there was no structure to my day other than wake up, walk dog, turn on computer. I've always been the sort of person who has needed a jam-packed schedule to keep all systems functioning at average speed. Now that this new normal (hate that term) is on the horizon, it looks like life will shift again. And I'm wondering, how will it go?
Aqua Vitae
This room has four walls, but it is also without walls, expanding past the fragile steel of my skull. A fragment of me looks at rows and rows of glass bottles that harbor remnants of some yesterday. I am there, fingers tracing along bumpy corks and smooth, cool glass. Memories pulse beneath like a plasma bowl, striking out in purples, blues.
Poem #29
The doughnut shop isn’t up to code; / danger makes a delicious dish. / Here, hello is flash-fried catfish.
Burnout
I need to write something. It needs to be 500 words. It needs to be posted today. At first, I was going to post a poem because I have lots of poems stored in the archives, but then I decided that would be cheating. So, here we are at the edge of burnout. This week marks one year in quarantine. One year of sitting in my bedroom, day after day: wake up, walk the dog, work, eat, work, walk the dog, work, walk the dog, eat, scroll, sleep. Intersperse that with some major dissociative episodes kicked off by mindlessly checking social media, and you’ll have a good idea of what this pandemic has looked like for me. It’s probably been the same for you, too. Or maybe you’re one of those people who had the personal strength to get super into CrossFit and cut carbs out of your diet for good. If you are one of those people, good for you. I am not.
Bailey Merlin 