stories

Charm for forgetting, 2021 

Loathsome ghost

Remarkable doom 

Unholy reminder

Banish the gnawing 

The night terrors and tremors

Possession of visions.  

Arrive with pure intentions 

On rug burned knees 

Bow to the unshakeable 

The inconsolable.  

Wait for a drought. 

Cast a circle of salt 

Around a silver bowl

Gather willing bodies

To consume with cream 

Or red sauce 

Until swollen 

Softened and perspiring.

Accumulate until left with nothing

Liquidate until the water is overhead

Take freshly harvested organs 

And soak in tequila – no sugar or salt

Offer to fae. If accepted 

Apologize. 

Lay naked alongside roadkill

Until sunrise  

Wait for strangers 

To invade untouched flesh 

Invite them to ogle, groan, or grope

Repeat until invisible bugs swarm 

And lay fresh eggs in the frontal lobe

Scratch, unearth more blood

To collect by the pound.  

Scrape at paint or wallpaper

Until dust accumulates in large piles

Uncover bones in the foundation 

Offer the walls bundles of rosemary

Or thyme. 

Catch flies with honey 

Until every mug, flute, and glass is filled to the brim with maggots 

Sustain worms with urine 

Amphetamines, arsenic  

Or used sanitary products. 

Wait for the rain but do not wish for it.

When it arrives  

Collect any momentos 

Or memos entities may cling to 

Gift to gods of fire  

Burn the bugs 

Blisters 

Spines of old novels 

And thistle 

Feed the uncontrollable blaze 

Add vodka 

Bring to a boil

Mix until there’s a salve

Or thick paste  

Rub in corners, on joints, and bedposts. 

Cast yelling spears to the north 

Until left with sweet nothings. 

Plant herbs in the floorboards

In the hearts of corpses

If they rot, repeat the process

If they sprout, 

Paint walls eggshell 

White or blue 

Scrub with vinegar 

Smoke out the infestation 

With lavender and hemp

Until the room is full of popcorn clouds.  

Gaze unflinchingly into a mirror for the first time in weeks 

Watch as life emerges from hibernation 

unfurl, uncloak, unbothered, unencumbered.  

Mind wiped clean 

You are free. 

Ooops

2019

A cracked egg on the sidewalk
Yellow yolk
Yellow sun

Lights on
Locked buildings
One lamp left glowing

Adding intrigue to an empty room

Fingers running
Trails blazing

Through dust 
Love letters written 
Because they’ll be swept up

White lies 
Turn shades
Darker with each day
It’s too late to stop now 
This isn’t just play

Your hands on my wrists
Hold me responsible
I can’t dodge your advances
When you have me pinned down

A dead animal decays
On the side of the street 
Mistakes happen every day
But they target the weak

I’m tired of hiding
I don’t know how to be found
During sleepless nights I search
For solace as I toss around

The First Time
​2017 
​
I longed to be touched, for a boy to want to touch me. My parents were mildly concerned, for good reason. I would disappear for long periods of time and return starry eyed, scribbling in my journal. The way I saw it, I couldn’t kill myself until I at least lost my virginity. I would gaze for hours into the lake behind my house, daydreaming about filling my pockets with stones and going out like Virginia Woolf.  Of course, I couldn’t execute this plan until I popped my cherry.
My parents were away for the weekend. My first time ever being left alone in the house, and, because I was fifteen and it was a week before school started, I decided to throw a party and hopefully get laid. The party consisted of a bunch of kids I didn’t know from the public school who brought plenty of drugs and thought it’d be funny to crush my parents’ produce against their heads. The molly they gave me was okay, but mostly my mouth was bitter and the room was spinning so I looked for someone else’s mouth to help drown out the taste. Grinding my teeth like a crazed animal, drowning in the fabric of a too-big t-shirt, I felt lucky any boy paid attention to me at all. I fell into the arms of a tall, dark, handsome seventeen-year-old who whispered sweet nothings as he hauled me off to my bedroom.         
After my long awaited first time, I was left unsatisfied. I dreamt my deflowering would be terribly clichéd and we would make love on a bed of rose petals to Frank Sinatra. Instead we avoided eye contact. I listened as people I didn’t know destroyed my house, while he fumbled around with my labia and chewed on my neck. I felt nothing when he made a hasty departure to grab a glass of water. I thought I was dreaming when a different, yet equally handsome young man sauntered into my room and fell into my bed. “So,” he breathed, “did you fuck him?” I nodded and smiled, remembering my role as the hostess. I looked down, made eye contact with my guest’s erection and excused myself to the bathroom. As I peed, I stared at the butterfly wallpaper I once insisted I get as a child, and reasoned with myself; I already did it once so why not do it again?  
Not even a full day later I sat staring at the same butterflies still toying with the concept of reason. I felt so stupid for thinking I could get away with everything. As if my parents weren’t going to go insane when they found out what happened when they left me unsupervised. Knowing they were in the next room putting my brother to bed, I finished off my hoard of pills. The drugs I took kicked in, the world dissolved into a haze, and I used a dull razor to tear at my arms, legs, and face with reckless abandon. I couldn’t seem to get deep enough, but I figured if I could bleed enough I could finally achieve my dreams of becoming a cliché. I chopped off my long hair as a final act of rebellion and dyed all of what was left bright purple. Before I even had a chance to tidy up, my father walked in. He took in the scene, hair covered the floor, my oversized white polo was drenched in cherry red blood. He grabbed me and held me, “Oh baby, what did you do now?”   
As my father drove me to the hospital I gazed at the blurry streetlights. His voice did something I’d never heard it do before, as he told me a story he’d never had the courage to share with me before. “New Year's Day, me and mommy were taking you home from the hospital, and as we took you outside for the first time the gray sky started to flurry. When I looked at you I knew I had never loved anything so much.” I looked over and for the first time in my life I saw my father cry.

Nabokov Imitation 
Fiction 
2017
​
I’m a connoisseur of taste, a flavor maestro. I compose a harmony of flavors only I seem to savor. From a young age I have had the most terrible hankering for flesh, human flesh that is. Fantasies of scrumptious human meat moist with mirepoix and delectable emulsions of blood, urine, and breast milk; things that would haunt a traditional man’s nightmares, dance about my daydreams. In my culinary pursuits I have found that human meat has a fascinating flavor profile only the most advanced of palettes can appreciate.
I grew up in a strict Catholic household where any talk of sexuality was strictly prohibited. In the dreary Midwest I was raised amongst the livestock in starkly similar conditions (bad haircuts, beatings). Without exception, every Sunday, the entire town joined together to celebrate our Lord and Savior. Every service we all drank his precious blood and nibbled on his papery skin. My parent’s diligent efforts to shield me from discovering my sexuality, despite their best intentions to please their all knowing Lord, I believe only helped lead to my discovery of the exquisite umami of homo sapien corpuscles. 
The very first time I ever became erect coincided with the first time I ever felt the craving for flesh. I was in fifth grade and I noticed a girl walking alone at the park with a particularly succulent set of thighs. It was as though her exquisite flesh was calling me, begging for me to take a bite. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden it was as if I was accosted, not by a snake but instead by the fruit itself. She was ripe and ready to chiffonade. However, before I even got the chance to taste her, I felt the blood rushing to my privates. I thought something was horribly wrong with me, that I had fallen ill. 
If it hadn't been for Sage I might not have ever sampled a human corpse and fallen down the rabbit hole into committing a truly monstrous sin. Sage, my sweet Sage, igniter of my appetite, my most delicious sin. Fatefully named for the herb she’d one day be garnished with.  
​After my incident with the little girl, though I was still a young age, I felt as though I owed it to myself and the culinary community to, at some point in my life, to try and prepare a Coq au Vin-Humain. I repressed my obscene urge for flesh for nearly half the age I was when I first laid eyes on my pulchritudinous Sage. The night I met her she was like a siren singing sweetly in the night, only to enchant me, pulling me off the precipice into cold and unforgiving waters. 
The first thing I noticed about her were her soft meaty thighs, exposed by her sort sundress. She was in the local watering hole with her friends and I watched her for what seemed like hours. I delighted when she would laugh, throw her head back, and her luscious body would shake with joy. I could almost see the hot blood pumping through her veins, I could smell her rich aroma. She had stunning soft velvety skin, like that of veal. Watching her steam in the smoky bar, I knew in that moment I had to meet her. So our romance began much like all classic romances begin, I sauntered across the bar and offered to buy the lady a drink. She looked up at me, my unwashed hair, my jagged yellowing teeth, and howled with laughter. As Sage and her friends snickered at me, I knew in that moment I had to eat her.