Bradland
Brad’s arguing with his girlfriend when she turns into him. It’s a Sunday evening and they’ve driven to the rocky outcrop a mile out of town, to watch the sunset and listen out for the coyote with the banshee-howl, and to pretend that suburbia isn’t making their lungs collapse in on themselv
The Salmon
You wanted me to notice you, wearing those bright pink leggings – fuchsia, magenta, whatever. I noticed. I cared. Yes, I cared. Then you slipped into the fridges, swimming through the trolleys and pushchairs – like a salmon. That’s it! The leggings were salmon, and bright, oh so bright
Mitch on a Kent Road at Night
Underneath the cold dust of night, skin coated in its sharp spit, he’s bobbing headlight first into the centre of the road, chin jutting out like a speedbump. Soon, the rubber will gravel him again—wrap and warp his skin—and slide him slick across the tarmac, beetroot nucleus pulposus.
Cordiform
Tick tick. Some animals need their loves far away from them. With the canned freeze, phone flickering under a blanket, I could almost understand. Pinecones in the boreal forest are right now closing up on their own warmth, Mr. Attenborough tells me, while long ears and pads have become pelt casings
family curses
after clytemnestra’s husband returns from the ten-year war, she hacks him to death with an axe. she says a curse made her do it. her son kills her in revenge. all the while — birdsong. i. the first year // petrification we were happy until the summer i turned ten. i hadn’t lear
Parody Personal Statement
Here commences the Personal Statement of the Right Honourable Patricia Eustacia Dalton-Ward, intended for the study of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, college irrelevant. As the scintillating sun reached its zenith on a warm summer’s day, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
All That’s Left
After Liberty Brignall She fills the Emma Bridgewater mug with hot water—her daily cup of English breakfast tea, with more than a splash of milk. The mug has a permanent home on her desk, its polka dots striking as ever—red, yellow, green and the blueish purplish grey—which was it? They c
The Lunch
Based on Monet’s ‘The Lunch’, set in his garden at Argenteuil Jean’s cheeks flushed red. The tower he had been building had come tumbling down, felled by the swift gale of his pudgy hand batting a bee away. The pollen in the air made his nose run, dripping onto the smart new sailor-suit Mama
