isaacthewriter

[isaacthewriter]

Leona

Leona tucked her secrets away in the empty spaces of her body, anywhere she could keep her faults to herself and far from the eyes of others. These faults were merely trivial quirks that she sought to hide from others, as she had carefully curated a persona for herself and she would surely be condemned to her own self-loathing if any funny detail were to puncture such an image.

She kept the crumbs of her turkey-on-rye in the slight gaps in between her whitened teeth as she told her coworkers, with a shrug, a smirk, and the reflection of the fluorescent office lights sparkling in her eyes, that she’d given up meat six years ago. She kept all forty-one of her years on the soft slope of skin that connected the tip of her nose to her lips, as it was just out of the reach of the two men who she allowed to proclaim themselves upon her mouth, one much more enjoyable to her than the other. She kept her simple midwestern hometown in the space between her shoulder blades, pale and angular, as it was only visible to those she left behind her.

She kept her lover in between her fingers because she knew her fiancée wouldn’t look too closely at her whereabouts when he held her hand in his.

To Leona, her fiancée could be best described as sufficient. His name was Pat, and he was everything that she told herself she wanted in a partner. He was successful, a lawyer who took absolute pleasure in his work. He was shapely and dressed sensibly for a man of his age and profession. He treated her as cordially as he had on the day they had first met. He was wealthy and he kept to himself. He was respectable. There was no reason, to Leona, that someone of her caliber should search for satisfaction elsewhere. It was easy enough to ensnare her mind in a companionship which she deemed to be logical and suitable for her kind, but she could not keep her body or her heart from straying far from her engagement.

She stashed the name of her lover on her lips, beneath a practical shade of lipstick. It was a name given to her by a man who found his strength in the juxtaposition between his softness and his toughness and in her childlike fantasies, he was some sort of hero, a knight who saved the princess from the bestial form of the utter boredom of the life she thought she wanted for so long. 

Leona escaped to Manhattan from her plain upbringing, years of her life which simply did not fit her lofty desire for luxury. She was a pristine businesswoman and here in her city, there was no one to contradict her current livelihood with her personal history, or perhaps there wasn’t until she met him.

Casey was unlike any man Leona had ever met in New York. He was unabashedly passionate and he wore his hair long and his shirts only partially buttoned. His eyes reflected the sunlight that poured over a forest somewhere Leona had left behind her long ago. He was fire to the icy business woman, and a stark contrast to her trite fiancée. The two had spent many fervent, sweat-drenched nights of intensity, enforced by their time spent apart, but while the two were separated by daylight or perhaps by reason, Leona pondered a certain strangeness that haunted her for days after Casey left the smell of his cologne and pheromones wafting through the air, flooding her sense of smell. She could recall something about the familiar stranger, akin to remembering the melody of a song but forgetting the lyrics. She could feel the life she had composed for herself unravelling at a maddeningly slow pace because she knew something about this man was unsuitable to her, but she did not know what, so she asked herself the same question over and over: who is Casey?

[isaacthewriter]

Nurse: a word doodle I made while I probably should have been paying attention in class

Lorenna stirred in bed, ensnared by exhaustion in its most pure form, she worked remarkable lengths of times, from mornings to nights. Her long fingers ripped through her long hair, similar to the richness of coffee, black and bitter, and she tore through the knots, which were worked into the length of it by six or maybe seven hours of trying to find her way to sleep.

She pushed her body, soft and round and short in stature, up from the warmth of her quilt and stood, stretching upwards on her unpainted toes. She yawned and reached her arms above her head and crossed them. She slowly stalked to her shower, moving slowly, still longing to return to a peaceful rest. Each step deepened her desire.

She slowly removed the long, worn, shirt which she had slept in and turned the silvered knob, allowing water to pour from her showerhead, raining downwards just behind the lilac-colored curtain. She stood, patiently, allowing the water to warm itself, as it took just a brief moment of her time, and she woke up early so she could spare brief moments like this one. She waited not an instant longer than needed, for Lorenna had lived in this house for just over two years, a measurement of time proving a satisfactory length to accustom oneself to precisely fickle characteristics of one’s own home.

Lorenna stepped into the shower, right foot before left, as per the routine which she had established some years ago. The sun was about to rise, this was the time she rose each day, with the exceptions of Tuesdays and some holidays, as well as her birthday when it arrived, always pleasantly. She had collected 31 of those, and in 11 days, she will have 32.

Lorenna was a nurse, a most necessary occupation and one of a much purpose, and one she greatly preferred over any position which she had held over the many years while she was receiving her education, a list which was quite extensive and possessed many hours she had entertained miserably. She had been employed under many to afford the tuition of a program inarguably great in content but perhaps not in cost, so when Lorenna arrived at her place of work, she felt a sergence of pride in her intelligence and her endurance, but the pride was also deeply embedded in a personal sense of purpose and achievement. Many lives would be forsaken had it not been for the skills, finely trained to perfection, that Lorenna kept in practice nearly each day, so the nurse stood in her shower, someone who had fulfilled and continued to fulfil the very human responsibility of helping those who had needed it.

The warmed water poured over Lorenna’s dark skin and she washed herself, excavating the basic longing for rest out of her clean body. She turned the silvered knob in the opposite direction of which she had turned it just moments prior and she reached for the pale purple towel. She slid the curtain to the side, and Lorenna, freshly roused, stepped out of her shower, right foot before left.

The woman dried herself and walked to her porcelain sink quite expeditiously in a comparison to the drowsy traipse from her bed to her shower. The cabinet holding the weight of the porcelain was made of a finished wood and painted a soft, quiet shade of violet, akin to a lavender blossom. She grasped the drawer handle and pulled, but she struggled briefly, for the object she sought had disjointed the drawer and prevented it from opening. In a flash of annoyance, she slid the drawer back into the cabinet and pulled with much more force, freeing the drawer from the dastardly inconvenience which the tool had wreaked upon her. She picked the wooden hairbrush up and pulled its strong, black bristles through her coffee hair and tied it behind her head in a tight bun. She looked at herself in the mirror, closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly through her nose. She enjoyed the peace of her slow mornings, for she could not return to it until her slow nights.

[isaacthewriter]

September Hymn

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

I knew love the first time you spilled holy words from between your lips. I called to you, my Lord, my God, my god you are beautiful and you taught my body each way to pray to you.

Love does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs.

I’ll sing hymns of you ‘til my voice breaks and my lips crack and bleed. You can drink my blood and I’ll call you my savior. You taught me to look to the heavens when I prayed and I saw the face of god inches above my own. I heard your sacred laugh ring down from the clouds, o, make me your follower, let me worship you.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth.

Full of grace, the Lord was first with me when I was thirteen and three quarters and you were infinite, so I confessed my sin in you. You made me a believer. Hallowed be thy name in me, for I am your kingdom, full of your power and glory for ever and ever.

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Pray me into your rosary so when I go to Sunday School, I’ll declare myself a sinner and ask for your forgiveness. Turn me from my sins, invite yourself into my heart, my life, my hellfire nightmares, my panic attacks I get every Sunday, teach me, o Lord, teach me how to preach your love to my reflection in my shattered bathroom mirror because my faith surrendered me to you and you surrendered me to myself. Who can I confess to? Condemn me to the holiest of thine psych wards, I surrender everything to my Lord Xanax, teach me, Lord, teach me how to stop hearing your church bell laughter, deranged, cold, and burning with the layers of Hell you sent my body to walk through and my soul to scour through years later. Every time I pray to a new lover, I taste my blood and your body. How can peace find my spirit when your hymns are carved deep into my palms? Excommunicate my holy ghost, let me back into the light of another, may peace be with me and my coward heart, blessed are the martyrs you made, you blessed with light and darkness, love and hate, and PTSD diagnoses. I’ve never met another like me, but I hear their voices echoing your name in the church I was raised in, piercing my eardrums like light through a stained glass window. May you deliver me from the evil you turned every memory of my childhood into. Make me a taboo in your faith, hear my vengeful spirit scream your name when you pray to yourself, because no god would want you and no devil takes the living. May your home be the tenth layer of Hell. Scar me with your grace and I’ll scar you each Sunday morning mass with the memories of the childhood you stole and burned in Hell. I will rise again on Sunday nights and the goddess I pray to now does not demand my worship or confession, they are patient and kind.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

[isaacthewriter]

About me!

Hi!

My name is Ace O’Brien and my pronouns are he/him/his. I’m a creative writing student in New York. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, and I really want to make a little online home for all my work!

I’m only 20 years old and I still have a lot to learn, but that won’t stop me from writing about everything I know! I focus mainly in poetry, but I’m rapidly drifting towards memoir/micro-memoir style writing. One of my current WIPs is an illustrated memoir called “Ant Brain,” which delves into my experiences with my own mental health. I know, that’s a lot of writing about me, but I think everyone has a story to tell, so I’ll do my best to tell it!

I have been dreams of one day being a best-selling author, but for right now, I’m a caffeine-fueled college student sharing my work with you!

Thanks for reading!