-
90 pounds when she left himmy mother says I amtoo young to know the significance of weight old enoughonly to think that 90 poundssounds like the feminine ideal Wasted to perfection At the first sight of my own bloodI screamed so they sayI like to imagine I remember drops of red on shattered glassat the first sight of my own bloodI understood something not right in my bones There was no money thenfor nursing students all womenthey used each other’s bodies like mannequins phlebotomy practice in dorm room bunk bedsbright young women atomic futurescovered in bruises like heroin addicts Bruises…
-
5/5 Autobiography of Red was my first ever Anne Carson read–I’ve never even read any of her standalone poems until now! I thought this book was gorgeous and completely different from anything else I’ve read. Carson’s epic poem tells the magical, and at times, haunting story of Geryon. As he grows, he experiences trauma, infatuation, and heartbreak as he comes to terms with what it means to be red. I feel like I should have more to say about a book I loved so much, but there’s just nothing else to be said. It was perfect.
-
I have loved. I have Loved like someone leaving All the lights on All night long. Like even the white cotton Sun was stuck at its crux Above the houses, perpetually Swabbing the iodine sky, And no one the whole world over Slept for four years. I have loved Like being very small, swimming In a saucer of warm milk, with no eyes. I have loved like a glass Of water on the bedside table With no water in it. I have loved like a ghost Wearing a bedsheet Ghost costume, as a disguise. Last week There was still a buoyant…
-
Answer the phone; assign a call number; refer to case management; refer to counseling; most often, refer to both. Open an intake file, close another one. Ask a client if they’ve been here before—nod politely, like you don’t know they’re lying, when they say no. Re-open their sealed file. Paulina, the receptionist, buzzes the room with a message: Sarah is on Line 1 and she’s crying again. (Sarah’s always crying). They can hear her sobs echoing through the office over Amira’s soothing voice saying “deep breaths, in and out.” Her tears, leaking through the end of the receiver, leave a…
-
4/5 As the last book I read in 2025, The Book of Form and Emptiness perfectly tied up my year in literature. I’ve been interested in exploring magical realism more, and while I’m not sure this novel would technically fall under this description, it was certainly magical, and a few times more realistic than I was emotionally prepared for. The book’s narrator is the book itself, that is to say, Book, as a sentient character. I loved the ambiguity between magic, psychic powers, and psychosis, and I especially loved the fact that distinguishing between the three is irrelevant to the…
-
A man walks into a bar and says: Take my wife–please. So you do. You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her and she leaves you and you’re desolate.You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. And you can hear the man in the apartment above you taking off his shoes.You hear the first boot hit the floor and you’re looking up, you’re waiting because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together but here we are in the weeds again, here…
-
Carbon monoxide poisoning in the public library parking garage — $5 an hour.Anything to relieve the August heat. It’s better than fighting crowds forfreezing springs, spreading like salamanders on algae-ridden rocks. dying grass shores are a bed to stretch catlike and tan our backs beside theonly overpriced tourist destination I still visit alone in this place, where cost and heat rise in unison. The warmer the climate, the steeper the rent. The truth is, I don’t remember the time before. I can’t explain whythe summers sear memory more than skin, or why we suffer so much just to pay ourdues to the Capitol…
-
From somewhere a calm musical note arrives. You balance it on your tongue, a single ripe grape, till your whole body glistens. In the space between breaths you apply it to any wound and the wound heals. Soon the nights will lengthen,you will lean into the yearhumming like a saw.You will fill the lamps with kerosene,knowing somewhere a line breaks,a city goes black,people dig for candles in the bottom drawer.You will be ready. You will use the song like a match.It will fill your roomsopening rooms of its ownso you sing, I did not knowmy house was this large.
-
From the highest point on the hill, Charlotte could see something glinting gold in the sunlight—about 50 feet away, at the foot of a large rock. She inched down the gravelly slope. The object was a ring, gold, with a single empty facet on the front, which Charlotte knew from her books and the occasional movie was where a stone would have gone. Maybe a diamond, she thought. On the inside of the ring was inscribed: To Shyanne, my love 10/15/2025. Charlotte’s stomach rumbled, and she pocketed the ring and went inside. The dinner bell rang at 7:03. Miss Suzie,…
-
4/5 I recently read Akwaeke Emezi’s poetry for the first time and loved it, so it’s no surprise I was a fan of their prose, too. Little Rot is intense, fast-paced, and filled with surprising twists and turns. I read it for a book club, and we all agreed that it would make a riveting action film should a screenwriter decide to tackle an adaptation. The plot of the novel takes place over the span of slightly more than 24 hours. For a piece that includes so many alternating characters and viewpoints, it’s surprisingly intricate and detailed without being convoluted…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Emily Vance Brown 