writing

 

JULY 2023: "Velvet parabolas"

"I'm more into the dead sea romance— swirly graphs of anabiosis, salty depths of nothingness and coming full circle," I used to say, waving my open hand in circles to explain. "And, if I were to choose, romance would be like the cascading sheets of rain; gravel crunching on the ground and subsuming itself into oblivion." But then the change— no longer do the particles of salt stay solidified at the bottom— came along, and I am washed anew, as the ground destroys the abstract at face value. And no longer can I stay floating away from what's real, and what's real tends to flower and scale the towers of my guarded eyes. When I open my eyes I see in technicolor, I see beauty, small thoughts that I store in my favorite cabinets, just to look at and feel, all the time.

JUNE 2023: "The green myriagon's 12th rotation"

I want to hold all of space in my hands and mold it to fit dreams, or paradoxes, until it's loopy, twisting, confused, blissful, gone. I want things to be small and insignificant, I want to revel in significance and the glamor of entropic comprehension. Glass. Rings. The furthest ring of the cosmos, a never-ending circle that somehow comes back around. How the back of my throat feels when I get a question wrong in front of the class. I love the deserts of far-out unreal places. The crevices of my body sometimes feel unfamiliar when I see them. But they have always been there, probably. People should know that they can be loved even if they are terrible, were terrible, and will always be terrible, because there's enough love to go around! I love when people are angry, when their faces fill with the strange passion we've made from our little chemically-functioning atoms. I want everyone to go insane and break and fight and rebuild and live. It's just so beautiful. I can't help but love the red-hot anger, love when people argue for things that mean nothing to anyone but them, love the flashy words, changing the things they can't accept, until morning breaks and we're suddenly all asleep again…

AUGUST 2023: "tetrapharmakos (don't fear)"

Three things. Sound, sand, and a sharp object. The woman called Leonie Ania realizes consciousness in a subterranean, starchy hotel room. Low ceilings. Thick, hazy air that tastes like the hot burn of an overzealous teenager’s bitten-out words. Her first thought: To exit. Irrational, she knows, yet as she feels sand uncomfortably rubbing up between each crevice down her body, she realizes that she does not know much of anything at all. Leonie sits up very straight in the slatted cot. Slowing her breathing, she can hear muffled voices outside the room. A singular voice, if separated from the mass, sounds ghastly and atoned. When combined, the voices compose desperate brays of a deathbed’s song. No, she decides, those aren’t voices that I know. Leonie tends to know a lot of things. But not right now. There’s a mirror slightly to the left of her blurred vision. She glances at her disheveled self, giving her familiar body a heavy look. Leonie’s all dressed up in the last party dress she remembers putting on, her glittered features matching the style she had done for a friend’s special occasion, shoes gone, her hair up in an extravagant flair done once for a celebration years back. These are all her memories, but they don't align. She doesn’t even recognize the little room. She climbs out of the bed, not bothering with the sheets. Material permanence is something she’s always struggled with; she tends to believe things just disappear when they’re out of her sight. Maybe they do. She decides not to look at the stained mattress any longer.

FEBRUARY 2023: "THE XLUA'TAM, WORSHIPPERS OF THE YUXIA-MITJE", Excerpt from The Guide to Kibstolya

An alternate denomination derived from the general Common beliefs. Transcribed from the Common Kibos personal pronouns and use of the word “you”, the Xlua’tam consider themselves the inner spirits and descendants of the monarch Rik’tjet, a distant acquaintance of the more commonly known monarch Kibsil. Rik’tjet, known to the Xlua’tam as the Empress Mother (Kibos: Yxia-Mitje /yuuhia michae/), is not only their goddess, subject of worship, but also their caretaker. Xlua’tam reject the notion of Kibsil being the world’s creator, and rather, believe he is solely the world’s destructor. Kibsil is not respected or revered, instead, he is known as the Anti-life, (directly translating to “no child” — Pam’eyuha). Through this, Xlua’tam also believe that those identifying as Monarchs are evil, while others are gracious, warrior beings — called the Empresses. The religion is complete with complicatedly spectacular tales of Rik’tjet and her Empress’s Army conquering worlds destroyed by evil Monarchs, similar to the power-hungry and overconfident Kibsil. The Xlua’tam are mainly confined to Alsnah, Manyx, and some parts of Abercia, but constant reports of Upper Southern groups immigrating to Pathway Northern cities have created a thriving Xlua’tam community in places like Cherlen in Magdefaire, and most notably, a rather large group that traveled to the city of Cocendi in the Sasdren region, many a hundred years previous. Interestingly, the Xlua’tam do not possess a specific story of creation — they believe the world was spun by the Universe’s Empresses at some point, and the Empresses were spun from stars. Note the derivation of the Kibos word yxi, meaning star, directly transcribing to the word yxia, meaning empress. The Kibos word for Monarch is a sharp contrast both in sound and meaning — “ik’sep”, a heavily bilabial word. While the Xlua’tam believe the world was weaved into existence by the Empresses, they don’t forget to mention, in their oral tale “the Will of Hers” — xlua saet, that the Monarchs were not created by the fierce Empresses, instead, remnants from a more violent time before.

DECEMBER 2022: "Reflections on the Iris" (contemporary Korean sijo)

JANUARY 2023: "KYODORIJI: LAND OF THE MALVI RIVER", Excerpt from The Guide to Kibstolya

Bordering the far more populous land of Mira, the mineral-rich Kyodoriji is home to a tribe with thriving traditions and culture: the Kyodor. While they are a rather closed-off group of people, the Kyodor are famous for being especially welcoming to travelers who bear gifts from other cultures. Kyodoriji’s climate is mild, similar to other parts of the North. However, many who would wish to call the region their home are often immediately deterred by the ancient legends of the Kyodor that appear to be more reality than myth: the land is home to vast, foggy, graveyards, catacombs of indescribable size, and ghosts that seem to cause strange events all throughout the region. Its capital city is Monhame, a busy Kyodor town that’s landed itself a reputation for being a rich cultural center harboring several different trades.

MAY 2023: "YOU"

YOU I possess myself. I hold myself like a broken animal, weary from the road. BROKEN — not continuous in space, time, or sequence or varying abruptly; "broken lines of defense"; "a broken cable transmission"; "broken sleep"; broken line"; "a broken note"; "broken sobs" [ant: unbroken] UNBROKEN — I write letters to myself, I have since allowed myself to know. To feel. I hope you remember what we did. adj 1: treated irreverently or sacrilegiously [syn: profaned, violated] The sculpture we’ve been making all my life, the one your hands lay on. I have been working. You have been sleeping. Sleep is an animal that we let go; made the soft surface of my body tired, far away, a lovely dance with the goddess, the fragile distance. The distance I take for you now is considered. I love, love, love the broken bones in my body. Demonstrate, now, the temporal mechanic called hate — I can’t be expected to bail you out, anymore. I loved with shame, and you killed the shame, so I love endlessly. You never did, so I do it for you.