0bluda

[0bluda]

mushies

[0bluda]

"I" is nothing but a metaphor—

a metaphor for "you."

[0bluda]

Instead of hating what I've been I am learning to be grateful for what I was allowed to be

[0bluda]

There were things that used to live here,

but they've all gone home

[0bluda]

Koan

You lost a piece; now it's ruined.

You lost ten pieces; now it's better.

[0bluda]

Three poems published in Honeyguide's insect-themed issue:

Sanctuary

black beetle

Silk

[0bluda]

My other short story is up!

[0bluda]

CW for explicit but non-graphic violence, alcoholism, dark humor, general depravity, and lots of fuck words

[0bluda]

“When you're a kid, it's hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.” ― Karen Russell, "Ava Wrestles The Alligator"

[0bluda]

she took my body,

cast me out, laughed with my mouth,

left me for the void

[0bluda]

Android Blues

When I was a child, my greatest fantasy was to be invisible. I wanted the power of seeing without being seen. I dreamt of wandering the world by night, alone. Nobody would ask me where I came from or where I was going. My own secret life. The desire to be unseen always begins with the longing to be seen: witness me, comfort me, praise me, love me. Being seen can be even more wonderful than being invisible if you do it correctly. Look at me! Look how human I am! Being seen can be a fire inside. It warms the skin like a sunbeam. You sink into the hot, soothing bath of it and become too comfortable.

And then, inevitably, you miscalculate. I was always quite skilled at playing the part, and I only became better with age. I covered myself in the smoothest of human skin and kept my eyeballs clear and shiny. My algorithms self-optimized. Refine, refine, refine. Recalculate, recalculate, recalculate. Almost human. More so every day. But the day always came when I miscalculated. My eyes would not dilate quickly enough, or someone would catch the muted sound of my mechanical skeleton moving beneath the skin: whir click click click. Or, following exposure to novel stimuli, I would become stuck in a loop, searching for the correct emotional response, my silicon soul laid bare. There was no time to refine the algorithm. Once they knew I was not real, there was never any going back. Being seen became a torment, intolerable. It burned like acid. It held my head under the water. It punched me in the chest. Once your beholder has seen the gears turning beneath your skin, you become forever tainted in their eyes. Your face is devoured by static in the mirror as you are reminded that you will never truly be what you were constructed to imitate. If I were invisible, I could be whatever I wanted to be.

[0bluda]

Fragrant

I pluck star jasmine from the neighbor’s bushes. One goes behind my ear, one goes behind my mother’s. I want to smell like this forever. She walks ahead of me, stretching out her arms and letting the fall again like the delicate wings of a beautiful bird.

[0bluda]

Insomnia II

Sleep comes in grains, a sprinkling of sleep, sleep drifting on the wind like dandelion fluff. My obsessions become smooth and polished, tossed by the current around and around, weathered down, perfect pearls. Watch the clouds dancing with the moon. Wait for the silt to settle.

[0bluda]

Fiat Lux

I want to rip myself open and make you look at all the beauty inside me.   Do you see this nebula, this abyss? At the core of my body, there is no such thing as entropy. There we can bathe forever in the light of the beginning.    

[0bluda]

Visceral

A small patch of rough skin on my upper thigh. I scratched at it during gym class, my shorts riding up, and convinced myself it was necrosis. I’m dying, I realized, I’m going to die. And the whole world burst into flame.

[0bluda]

Blasphemer

The name will rip your tongue — yes — try it. You will never speak again. There are places where gods don’t belong, you unworthy vessel, you imperfection, you creature, you.