Thick With Conviction

No Formal Burial I dreamt the roses died. The shape and odor melted into a red ocean. I dreamt I was gnawing on a warm piece of bread. A delusional delicacy disappearing from my palms. My dead branches poked with drought and dusted with barren earth, bleed thin twigs. I dreamt I was awake, that within the dream their bellies were full. They were different versions of myself: skinny, fed, bloated, in peasant bondage, feverish, tenant in a tenant-landlord brawl. I can’t seem to escape the spiral of my children’s limbs. My milkless breasts lead my children into misery.                             …guigh orainn na peacaigh,                                         (...

First Line In the end of days what you need is a good first line. To distract you from the truth with its own truth. The way pain can sometimes distract from pain. The way beauty can sometimes distract from pain. The way a good bedtime story can light up the dark side of an entire planet, given a little room with a bed in the corner, a few right words, a child listening. In the end of days what you need is a good beginning. Something hopeful and trembling like a tongue. Something open and unselfconscious like a mouth, listening to the words, and the music of the words. Something steeply rocking like a ship, or a sleep, heavy, floating, viable, smelling of saltwater and infinite possibility. Distance I love coming back here to this place where I was happy, or maybe I was unhappy and I keep coming back because I’m not here anymore--not there anymore. There’s a difference between a great sorrow and a beautiful catastrophe--beautiful for the way it brought peo...

Kala gives a tour of hell This is the metal box he locked me in. This is the chain he used to keep me bound. This is where he shot Charlie three times in the chest. This is where he buried him, like a dead animal. This is where I was allowed to walk around, like a dog, to smell the air, to hope for release. This when we hear about how likeable my captor was, how he was a great boss, a model citizen, never the type to do this. This is when I don't talk about my bare back against a metal floor, about tasting his scent, about the thumping sound in closed in spaces, and how it echoes in my teeth and eyes. This is when you can read about the fourteen year old that he bound and forced, about how they released him, gave him the chance to step up his game. This is the hole a gun makes, a shovel makes, a void makes when someone you love dies. This is when I give the story an edit, a heroine. When someone asks me what its like to kiss another girl It tastes like cotton candy,...