WRITING SAMPLES​

​Micro-Fiction: "Bloody Blanchett"

     Something wasn’t right.
​     Detective Tift examined his suspect. Newlywed Scott Blanchett scratched the dried blood flaking his wrists, sobbing all the while.
     This case was clear-cut. They had enough evidence.
     “Why don’t you just admit it?” Tift asked.
     A pause. A sniffle.
​     “I can’t admit to what I can’t remember.”
​"Bloody Blanchett" was first published in April 2019 on fiftywordstories.com. 

Short Fiction: "Noticed" (Excerpt)

     Millie sighed as she felt the soft sheets beneath her tickle her skin. She never remembered the linens in hospitals being so soothing, so soft, so comforting. She wanted them above her, too, surrounding her like air and calming her like a cool breeze on a scorching day. She tried to move her hand down, to pull those lulling linens up, but her hand wouldn’t move more than an inch in any direction. She cracked her eyes open to see stained walls, a flickering overhead light, and a plain, popcorn ceiling she didn’t recognize.
 
     With her brows furrowed, she twisted her head to the right, and saw a thick, black rope holding her wrist hostage. She looked left to see her other arm bound to the bedframe the same way. She glanced down, tried wiggling her feet, and realized she couldn’t do much with those either.
 
     Since when did nurses restrain patients? What was wrong with her?
 
     Before she could think it over, the black returned.
​
"Noticed" won the local League for Innovation Student Writing Award in the Creative Writing Category at Sinclair Community College in Spring 2016. The story placed second in the national competition. Later that same year, "Noticed" was published in the League for Innovation's anthology, "Even the Dirt Keeps Breathing."

Selected Poetry
​​

​ARS POETICA
Her arms are wide open, welcoming
me with madness, maybe
if she were different, then
my heart wouldn’t skip, then
my palms wouldn’t sweat, then
this electricity sizzling through my veins
wouldn’t exist, I
wouldn’t exist

She is the beginning and end, the rise
and set, the gravity
that pulls me in, giving
and taking in the same beat of breath, selfish
in her want of me, I
in my want of her, selfless
without her

She ignites a part of me, inside
my soul, untapped
untouched, uninspired, that
lights like fire under her touch, scorching
sounds and smells and sensations, so
sweet like a scene in my head, so
bleak like it never even happened

She is fleeting in her beauty, her lips
like a gold-woven whip, so beautiful
but so deadly, caressing
my mind with ministrations of inspiration, laying
before me the world at my fingertips, directing
me without a map, pushing
me forward, always
pushing me back

She latches like a leech, tightly
takes hold, suffocating
me with her affections, I
breathe her in, addicted
to the twang of her perfume, hanging
on her every word, hating
her persistent presence, hating
her more when she’s gone, wishing
for a minute more more more
of the give, less
of the take, she
drives me crazy, and I
​love her all the same
​"ARS POETICA" was published in the 2016 edition of the literary magazine, Flights.
Inescapable Introspection
Today, I could avoid it no longer:
like the rest of them, the shivers set in, 
the tingling began, first, in my head— 
temporal twitches, parietal pandering, 
occipital occasionally obtrusive or opprobrius,
frontal fidgeting, flighty—fading 
between one identity and another—crisis
averted, subverted, converted?—we have
formed a colorless corpse de ballet, infected 
by our electronic environs—we
dance in digital, mindless time, feet
light as they frolic through the field 
of 1 0 1 1 0 1 0—nothing more 
than pawns and pixels—not feeling
the wires as they slither around our
throats.
"Inescapable Introspection" was published in The Horror Zine's 2017 Spring Edition and additionally featured in their 2017 February e-zine.
Orientation
I. 
To survive, frogs adapted to their
environments—eye sockets evolving,
vantage point higher north,
preying on their prey before their prey
could prey on them—languid
tongue lengthening like elastic, reaching
and grasping and dragging towards whole
stomach happy—porous 
skin sucking in water and
oxygen like an addict greedy for their
fix, like this is the only way to
live. 

II.
The first time I drank
bleach for breakfast, I
did it for fun—the seductive
scent teased me from the carpet each
time Momma or Papa spilled a little
blood—putrid in its 
pureness, pureness in its
cleanliness, like a newborn baby
bathed of its imperfections—I found
the only way to swallow the
shame, restore my veins, was ingesting
innocence.
"Orientation," was published in the May 2017 edition of Red Cedar Review.