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A collection from Marathon, TX

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"...Dear nameless assailant

How this bus carries the burden of your stick and blindfold Patriarchy  that has only taught you to treat women like ceiling strung jugs Violence claws up from your throat, Like a monstrous accomplice to the 97 percent that will never see jail…"

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Offering 

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I've always loved Dia de Los Muertos aesthetic! I love the craft work, the detail, the spooky-romantic-ness. My halloween-spiration! 

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Rabi Khan

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Our first literary piece comes from Alyssa Lindley Kilzer graduated this fall from the University of St. Andrews with an M.Litt in Creative Writing. She is currently writing short stories and life ...

Check out one of my latest short stories, "Marie", just published on this new blog "The Connecticut Review". So exciting to see more of my writing getting online! Please read and share if you enjoy the story.

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Pearl Necklace Moon by Laurent Laveder

The Full Moon rises above the coast of Brittany, France, in this photo sequence from La Perdrix lighthouse.

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.:That thing that you do, after your day job, in your free time, too early in the morning, too late at night. That thing you read about, write about, think about, in fact fantasize about. That thing you do when you’re all alone and there’s no one to impress, nothing to prove, no money to be made, simply a passion to pursue. That’s it. That’s your thing. That’s your heart, your guide. That’s the thing you must, must do:.

www.upliftedvibrations.com (via uplifted-vibrations)

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You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.

Alan Watts.

Photo by Avatar Buddha.

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feeling pretty into this guy Reggie Watts these days

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Big Elmer

I'm sharing below a short excerpt from 'Big Elmer', a short story from my Master's thesis. Words are property of Alyssa Kilzer.

Excerpt from 'Big Elmer', a short story by Alyssa Kilzer

 "...

Christ, it was cold.

It was a kind of cold no amount of blankets could hide. He only had one on the bed, anyway. He had gotten rid of the others, back in September. The woodstove wasn’t burning, wasn’t making the house so hot he had to throw open the doors and windows, agitated and needing to feel the trickle of cool air through the heat like water on flushed wrists. The wood had run out the week before. He had done that on purpose, too—not chopping more, fighting his instincts to prepare for the winter.

He knew it was the kind of cold that would have made each strike of the hatchet vibrate through the bones of his hands and arms, hitting him in that one sticky spot at the elbow, the funny bone, that would make his knees feel dry in that spot where the top of the leg met the bottom, the space in between the bones. That is, only if he had given in at the last moment, ventured up the hillside to chop wood for the stove.

But he was inside, his hands not around the handle of a hatchet but in the chest pocket of his overalls, elbows splayed out to the sides. His hips rested into the lopsided old sofa cushion, worn in the one spot he always sat, where it had been sinking closer to the floor for years. The long, rounded fingertips of his left hand grazed those of his right. Just between them he could feel the square edge of the red rubber band, and underneath his thumbs fondled the thickness of the wad. The paper was worn soft from years of forming into this ball-like bundle, big enough to make a bulge at his chest, big enough to rest his tired hands around it in the shape of two C’s.

$30,000.

  He wanted just one more minute to rest there, without having to think about who would take the bundle of money without knowing or understanding how many Fridays he had come home, wrapped another fifty dollars around that bundle and pocketed the rest, binding, sometimes replacing, the rubber band, and depositing it in the foot of the long white sock with a gray heel, in the back of the drawer filled with socks now twenty years old. The chest of drawers was older, and momentarily he thought about that, how he had made it when Alice was still alive. He sighed, admitting to himself that it would most likely be his son, Elmer Jr., who found the money. He thought that Elmer Jr. was too young to understand the patient rhythm of saving wages for twenty years. Recently married, he was sure his son wouldn’t ever understand his father’s futile regret of never having found another woman he loved enough to spend the money on. Sitting there he began to get angry , thinking of how Elmer Jr. moved out at sixteen, leaving him alone in the house for the last fifteen years. A small part of him hoped that Elmer Jr. didn’t find the money.

From the sofa he had a clear view of the sunset across the wide expanse of trees down the valley, one long wall of windows that he always cleaned himself. It was a clear pink night, the sun just dipping down behind the base of the mountain although it was only 6 o’clock. November.

It almost felt like too much work to stand, not having eaten all day, with his knees stiff, and he was tired, so tired, but he was going to open the windows.

Just one more minute. He told himself this like someone not wanting to wake up from the warmth of a morning bed in winter. Just one more minute.

In that minute it seemed the house sealed up closer to him, like he could feel every inch of it pressing close. He built it, with his father, but that was a long time ago. He didn’t feel close to the house because he built it or because he had lived in it so long. He felt like the house was close to him. It crept up on him sometimes like a child asking a question and not going away, or a dog that looks like he needs to tell you something and can’t find the words.

  He sighed,

  let go of the money,

  used his hands to press him up out of the sofa.

              He extracted the wad from his pocket, dropped it heavily onto the sagging sofa cushion, where it landed with a soft thump and rested in the crevice just between. He stood there for a moment, staring at it, feeling a tug in his chest. Then he turned away and started to pull open the windows.

Two long walls of them, one looking down the valley and the other to the West, at the river. He pulled each one all the way up. There was the dry scrape of wood against wood and then the heavy sound where it had to stop, the joint between the two, where the bottom part met the top—one piece of wood on top of the other, one sheet of glass in front of the other, trapped air in between.

Next, he opened the front door, and that’s when he felt the cross breeze. A cross breeze was necessary in the hot Tennessee summers, sometimes even in the winter with the heat of the wood stove. He stood in the middle of the room, his hands shoved in his very thin and soft cotton pockets, stained blue long ago in the laundry. The breeze ran around him in circles. Standing there he thought he could hear the holes in the attic walls, the whistling of the wind through those tiny cracks he hadn’t fixed up lately. For the first time the house felt empty and far away, like something somebody had already left behind. He felt embarrassed that his son might think of him as giving up, wouldn’t understand it. He’d always thought it was a selfish thing, and he felt a seed of shame sharp in the back of the throat. When he was young he had told himself he would be different from his own father, kinder and more thoughtful. But lately it felt as if his father had been inside his deepest cells all along, emerging as the others shed and died. He dug his hands deeper into his pockets and shrugged, against the breeze.

He bent his right knee and straightened it, the one that always gave him more trouble. Maybe rain is coming, he thought. No, he corrected himself. It’s a clear night. He looked down at the river through all the open windows. It’ll be alright, he thought, and just wanted to get it over with.

..."

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Old Course, St Andrews, Scotland, 10.30 PM, week of summer solstice

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Touch the earth

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treehouse

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treehouse

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treehouse