Writing Samples
"...Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do
and what they have to do." -Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
and what they have to do." -Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Micro-Fiction: "Bloody Blanchett"
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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.” |
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"Bloody Blanchett" was first published in April 2019 on fiftywordstories.com.
Short Fiction: "Noticed" (Excerpt)
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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. |
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"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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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