Anna and Mary
Anna put her index finger to her mouth, found the sore molar and pressed down on it. The layer of phlegm in the back of her throat was still faintly sweet. She put the jar of honey back in the cupboard. As a child, she had ground her teeth as she slept; she couldn’t help […]
Alone in the House
No, I hadn’t left the downstairs light on. Had I? I hang a few paces outside my doorway. Before this I was stewing in my bedroom. I could have been doing a million other things than rolling around on my bed, intermittently swapping phone, book and laptop between my hands, wondering if this was wha
The Blood of the Beast
A crude drawing of God lies in your lap, the limp hand of a father cut in half by a fold and hastily scribbled over. Those brutish lines are shadows on my wall, chanting Gregorian hymns until their thousand shadowed heads erupt with horns. Your towering tongue speaks viscous words, confessing a toni
love letter from home
no it’s not what you think it is; not batter rolled in a tight embrace every lunar new year (but you hear the lid slipping off already, so it could be). it’s adding the clock and weather apps as widgets (go to bed, wear extra layers, you know we can’t take the cold). it’s receiving […
After the Storm
They have black tongues, arteries which are rumoured to pumpcinders and tar. As they summon the gale, words drip like treaclefrom their blaspheming mouths, weaving a tale of two horses who gallop the town: one black, the other white,like a negative impression. With eyelashes wet from the storm,they
Postcard from Dún Laoghaire’s West Pier
A fat seal drags itself up the harbour To gnaw on fishbones. In my dreams jaws clamp Round my skull, bring brittle bits of me back Down towards the seaweed, sludge and slime. I see it as I feel it. Troops expected France but spilled out of ships Here, at what was then Kingstown, To […]
Ersatzwörter
Berlin, November Today the U-Bahn wasn’t running so I took the Ersatzverkehr, and it made me think of you back home, two summers ago, when we were friends again, and sitting in a square of June sunlight on the floor of David’s room. What I can’t say with words I try to say [&hell
Marginalia
Words by Danann Kilburn. Art by Poppy Williams.
Faltering
Words build up in my throat, sticky like caramel, to choke me. The tension spreads to my face as the backlog of muted syllables drives forward but doesn’t push itself through. My mouth contorts under the mounting pressure –I’m powerless. When the words eventually lurch out, past my tongue, tee