Alexander’s stomach rebels. It cramps and spasms as his body struggles to contain the wrongness inside him. Sweat beads on his smooth skin; his muscles ache and his mouth forces itself open. The bathroom’s tiled floor is cool and peaceful, and he desperately wishes that he could let himself collapse onto it, to curl up and dissociate until it’s all over, but he can’t, he really, truly can’t. He is here and this is now and everything is happening so much. ...
“Has anyone ever done this for you before?” “No. Uh, a bit lower …” Sparrow barely holds in a moan as their hands find the right spot on his shoulders. “Really? A cute morsel like you … well, I’m honored you chose me, then.” “Um. Could you, uh.” “Yes?” “… u-use a different word. For me.” “Oh, of course! What would you prefer?” “U-um. Something, uh,” he hides in face in his hands, not that it matters much, “something masculine?” ...
Dead thing sits on the floor, watching. Doesn’t move an inch. Its skull is a crushed mess and one of its eyes popped as it died, a mass of slime dripping down from its ruined cheek onto one of its perfectly formed and perfectly unblemished breasts. Death’s eager embrace didn’t care at all for its body; the trap’s jaws only took its too-curious head.
It was hot and humid on the day thorns first touched your skin. The cloud-speckled sky danced between rain and sun, the two intermingling as freely as lovers, steaming the world. It had been like that for what felt like forever, and the bushes had grown lush and dewy, their branches bowed down by the weight of sweet berries. Your lips were stained with juice and your stomach full of their flesh when you realized that you’d picked the fringes bare, and, still too young to understand the need for moderation—too young to understand the need for fear—you reached deeper. ...
The sun is dripping again, a cracked yolk running down the sky to pool along the crumbling horizon. Burning yellow mingles with chilly red clouds, and magenta steam bubbles up from the boiling ocean. It smells like burnt fish and salty rot, so I close my window and turn the air purifier up. Can’t risk getting vomit on the rug again. I read on the news that this is normal. It’s part of a cycle. For the world to be renewed, first it must die, but only the parts that don’t matter. The unimportant parts. But the news said that I was in one of the important parts, a part that will become a seed to fill the new world with new life, so that’s probably okay. ...
originally posted to Twitter on September 8, 2021. The liquid roils within its flask, fighting against the thick rubber stopper. Pink and purple and green glimmer on its surface, fleeting highlights against its deep reflective black. It’s trying so hard to get out—but it doesn’t stand a chance. Spell-etched glass and a binding circle burned into your countertop make sure of that—even if it broke the stopper, it would be trapped. ...
Originally posted to Twitter on August 8, 2022. With the click of a button the room fills with the mournful sounds of a funerary dirge, a piano’s mournful notes weaving through droning prayers and grief-filled tears. The music drips down the cold stone walls and across the marble slab— “Ugh, it’s so cold in here …” The body on the slab shifts just enough to stare at its companion. She’s shivering in a lacy black dress and mourning veil, nipples hard and skin goosebumped. ...
Originally posted to Twitter on August 13, 2022. The devil is not so crass as to wait outside your door. She leaves a calling card pinned to it and is gone before the doorbell’s chime fades into the city’s rumbling heartbeat—disappearing into a cab, or behind a truck; denying you any glimpse of her. The card is heavy in your hand; thick paper, expensively printed. Embossed with a curving floral pattern that doesn’t pretend to match the elegant red ink. ...
(This story is also featured in my collection Joyous/Decay) For the last few months she’s asked you the same question every week. “Are you sure you don’t want it to be a tattoo instead? Something permanent?” Each time you answer more or less the same way. You’re sure, you really are; she doesn’t need to ask. You’d tell her if … You’d tell her. But you won’t need to. You’re more sure of that than you’ve been of anything except the need which first led you to her, back in those dreary days you can hardly remember now; back before you were really a person, just an empty shell pretending. ...
This last tape is singed, speckled with shinysmooth patches where its plastic has begun to melt. There’s no label, just a few scraps of lingering paper, disconnected letters stripped of all context.