Month: June 2020

First Day of Spring by Jeanna Paden

On By okaydonkey7In poetryLeave a comment

Tennessee rains sunbeams for the first time all year
a worm crawls under my skin
inching along, stretching
beside me a level
I use to keep my head on straight
even when the sun is out
my body makes clouds
sewage is gurgling up in the backyard
we pretend we don’t smell it because the money isn’t
there
I am a playground for worms, wonder too much about death
wonder about every person I know who was always bound to die
I spoil everything, never thought I’d live
through the midnights of February
but today, Tennessee is lighting up
green and yellow, wind in the treetops
worms working the dead earth

 

Jeanna Paden (she/her) is a freelance health and wellness writer and poet. Her poetry has been published by Foothill: A Journal of Poetry, Pulp Poets Press, and The Bookends Review. Her creative work has received nominations for The Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets anthologies. Connect with her on Twitter at @halfwaytoitblog.

Call It My Signature Kill by Kristina Ten

On By okaydonkey7In flash fictionLeave a comment

When did I start leaving “Best,” off my emails?

Best, Greg. All the best, Greg. Thanks and best, Greg.

It wasn’t always a lie, though by the end I couldn’t type the word without the tips of my fingers starting to burn. Imagine wishing Jay MacArthur in global sales the best and actually meaning it. Or Johanna Wrigley with her long list of demands, every one of them tagged, impossibly, priority number one. Or Brian Warner from HR, who once told me to my face that I might improve my rapport with the team by including more friendly exclamation points in my emails.

How we say something is as important as what we say.

All my best to you and yours! Greg.

Hard to imagine, but it’s true: when I started at the firm, I harbored no ill feelings toward any of them. I was there to do the work and collect the checks, and I wasn’t closed off to the idea of making a friend or two, having drinks at our local, watching the game back at mine.

But then you get to know someone. And it’s Jay with the Bluetooth headset always in one ear, taking loud calls in the shared bathroom, closing the deal in the stall next to mine while I debate whether to relieve myself or hold it in, whether I want whoever’s on the other end of the line to hear or not. Not in the best interest of the firm, sure, but could that foul sound be my weapon in finally bringing Jay MacArthur down a peg?

I chicken out, of course. Sit and wait, tense from the waist down. Wonder if he sleeps with the headset in. Wonder if he wears it with his wife.

So what came first: realizing I didn’t wish good things for these people or realizing that it was working—the wishing, I mean? Now, I’m not ordinarily one for delusions of grandeur. But you can’t argue with the facts. I joined the firm, I sent the emails—best this, best that—and by all accounts, they all seemed to be doing really, really well.

Don’t get me wrong. When we met, they were doing all right. Brian Warner with his shiny new son and homemade baby food. Once he accidentally packed a jar of it into his own lunch and when he pulled it out in the break room, everyone laughed and awwed like, new dad, endearingly frazzled, and makes his own baby food, too. Goes the extra mile. Sweet potatoes and wet banana mashed lovingly by hand.

Like I said, doing all right. But then I join up, fire off a few bests in his direction, and Brian gets a promotion and starts rolling an Alfa Romeo into the company parking lot.

And get this—get this!—Johanna signs a publishing deal for a goddamn memoir. I watch her empty three packets of instant oatmeal into a bowl every morning and stare at the microwave as the seconds count down. What could possibly have happened in her life that’s worth paying to read about? I wonder if her manuscript editor, like her colleague, will suggest more exclamation points.

Don’t believe me yet? How about this: IT guy, Alan something, nice enough actually. Haven’t exchanged more than a few quick words since he got me set up on my first day. We get into a long email thread about a glitching office printer and hours later I find out he’s put in his two weeks’ notice. Why? Huge inheritance. From? A dead great-aunt he didn’t even know.

Best, Greg. Very best, Greg. Really, why don’t you just win the lottery already? Greg.

So here’s what I did: I stopped. Call it a test, to confirm or deny my suspicions. Call me a man of inquiry. It’s not a crime. Show me a single piece of documentation inside or outside the firm that requires me to sign off with “Best.” You can’t. It doesn’t exist.

Hi Johanna,

Please find attached the files you requested.

Greg

Greg. Greg. Greg, Greg, Greg! And just like that, the spells I had unknowingly cast over the employees of Centurion International began to wear off.

And it was satisfying. It was what I wanted. More than that, it was what they deserved.

Suddenly, Johanna starts talking less and less about her writing deadlines—of which everyone has been so supportive, by the way: “Two hundred pages by Monday? Well, you’ve simply got to cut out early! The firm will understand.”—and come to find out the publisher dropped her.

One day, I pull into work and see Jay’s truck parked in the spot furthest from the building doors. That ridiculous oversize luxury pickup, invariably gleaming, no matter the weather, as if under hot, bright studio lights. As I drive by, I see he’s shirtless and shaving, the driver-side mirror flipped down, his heavy chest pushed up against the steering wheel.

Me, I’m not heartless. I was just about to feel sorry for the guy when I saw the Bluetooth headset already lodged in his ear.

Yes, satisfying seeing them get put in their place. At first. But the mind is amazing in its ability to recover from minor setbacks, and sure enough, everyone was back to their regularly scheduled programming within the week.

Then there’s this new hire, Paul Pritzker. “Call me PP,” he says and makes no indication of joking, displays not a molecule of self-consciousness. And the worst part is: people do it! Out loud, in person, straight faced, on the phone. When a difficult client shows up on the roster, they say with confidence, “Don’t worry. PP’s the lead on that one. He’s got it under control.”

But I consider myself a measured man. Level headed, not prone to overreaction. Hey, let him be called what he wants, right? Who’s it hurting? It wasn’t until this PP sat on the corner of my desk—sat, his full body weight, on the corner of my desk—to carry on a bit of mid-afternoon small talk with Rachel, who sits at the desk next to mine, that I made the decision. Straw, meet camel’s back.

So what goes in my emails now? Not “Best,” and not nothing, either. That wide white nothing after the body of the email and before my name, Greg? Well, you know what they say: empty spaces yearn to be filled.

What we say is as important as how we say it.

Use your words.

Granted, I have to be smart about it. I can’t be so obvious. It takes a certain finesse, an understanding of human psychology, multiple meanings: something our friend Paul Pritzker clearly doesn’t have.

Let them think you’re wishing them luck:

Break a leg,

Greg

Or celebrating their successes:

You’re on fire,

Greg

Or hoping they enjoy that conference in Vegas you never get to go to, no matter how long you’ve been with Centurion or how many times you apply for a spot:

Have a hell of a time,

Greg

Yeah, a real hell of a time. Let them think what they want.

Then watch them pack up for the day, every employee, no matter who they are, grabbing the same assortment of objects: two things they’re addicted to (smokes, phone) and two things they think they’ll need later (keys, wallet).

Watch them pull out of the parking lot.

And watch it come true.

 

Kristina Ten is a Russian-American writer of short fiction and poetry, and a 2019 graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lightspeed, Black Static, AE Science Fiction, and elsewhere. Find her at kristinaten.com and on Twitter as @kristina_ten.

morning ritual by KJ Shepherd

On By okaydonkey7In poetryLeave a comment

we lay in bed, shirts and briefs and bare feet,
punch drunk on antihistamines and no sleep,
riffing for hours:

on your dream and whether it’s about your
mother (yes); how transparent a ghost must
be (very); whether i ever went to a private
school (never); about my alter ego’s kinks
(spit); my fur (nice); your fur (incredible);
my eye crust and your snoring (oh well);

we fall into a celebrity incantation:

ruby dee, didi conn, rae dawn chong
kiki dee, deedee king, bb king, chaka khan,
connie chung ruby dee kikideedidiconn
raedawnchongchakakhandeedeeking c c h
pounder

hello i’m shelley duvall
(i kiss you and you kiss me back)
hello I’m shelley duvall
(we sing tom’s diner at each other)
hello i’m shelley duvall
(i plant my nose under your arms)
hello i’m shelley duvall
(my cat is confused by all this)

in the shower, I list all the ways
i will mess this all up:

if I leave town too much, or not enough;
if I fuck too many other guys, or not
enough; if I began to hate my cat for
liking you more than me; if you see me
when I yell in traffic; if I say I love you
loud enough for you to hear it; if you
say tina chow stacy keech robin leach and
I have nothing to give but my eye crust

hello I’m shelley duvall
(i make you breakfast with my last eggs)
hello I’m shelley duvall
(I’ve read about dual star systems)
hello I’m shelley duvall
(you lick my nose and I lick yours back)
hello I’m shelley duvall
(we laugh under the weight of all this)

 

KJ Shepherd was a historian who became something else. They run the zine you know, i don’t know, and you can also find their poetry and other writing at Contingent, Lady Science, and Tropics of Meta. KJ lives in Austin, Texas.

The Prognosticators by Matthew Burnside

On By okaydonkey7In UncategorizedLeave a comment

It occurred to all of us about the same time that our little brother could see the truth at the bottom of the well: how all fates entwined, triple-knotted and gleaming in their misery, held together by a wise but stubborn old snake named Mister Misty McRattly Tail, Esquire.

In those days we took turns dangling him by his dusk-colored ankles when we weren’t busy picking at scabs on the porch, or catching too-low clouds scudding overhead toward a big pink horizon of demise.

While it was my turn my sister Witch Hazel counted her splinters gleefully while Buck Owen tore apart a rocking chair and Salinger packed an ant pile into an old pie tin. “Look how big the peppercorns panic!” he hooly-hawed, before pouring it down the back of Zipperboy’s overalls.

“What’s baby see now?” yelled one of em again. I don’t know which.

“Getting closer” I reported, lowering the rope cinched round baby’s ankles as he giggled furiously into the void. “Good baby. Go go go!”

The game of it was just so: Noose up thine soft baby ankles and let descend. Get baby close enough to catch snake in mouth. Pull up for a prize. Most days it wasn’t about winning—just giving a name to our madness.

Soda bottle chimes clanked together strung from their limbs now. An owl peered out from a knothole. “What’s baby see?”

“Not quite yet” I reported, feeling sludgeblooded and starved for action. “First one to brick a bird gets to pet the spider!” one of em announced. I don’t know which.

Next thing I know the sky is thick with salmon dust and breathing is a chore. “Cut it” a neighbor hollered. They must had been burning; I could smell it in the air. Disinfected suds and gristle.

Then all were out wide in the yard equidistantly posed: one burning up the kiddy pool, one blowing black bubbles, one pinching mushrooms, one picking for nose coal. Deep diving.

“What’s baby see?”

“Almost almost,” I reported. Flung my attention down the hole and heard a rising whistle. Like fishhooks swirling around in a bowl made of molars. Glass clicking through its crooked lips.

Someone yodeled. Another yelled out a word we were taught never to say aloud.

Everyone fell down at once, crashing through the grass itch-riddled and red.

“What’s baby see?”

“Nigh coming up” I reported, feeling a sugar high. Sudden summer heat in my bones.

I could feel the future rumbling in my belly, like that pie tin full of ants. Could taste time and rain backwards. Throat full of dandelion parade…little baby bulbs and serpent skulls. Giddy and sad without knowing or caring to know the extent of my own edges.

“What are you children up to now?” said Mother, summoning us for dinner.

Inside, we dunked our heads, said grace, scraped our plates clean.

“So—” Father finally said, slurping his canteen. “How was your day?” In the distance hills were hiccupping; sirens sloshed around like wild bells drunk on panic. Our sheepheads tilted as night was coming on strong, guttering through the slanted board. Mother gnawed a cactus in the disposal.

“Everything is wonderful” I said as baby wriggled, laughing through the snake writhing round in its gummy maw. “Why do you ask?”

 

Matthew Burnside is the author of Postludes (KERNPUNKT), Rules to Win the Game (Spuyten Duyvil), and the hypertext novel series Dear Wolfmother (Heavy Feather Review). More work may be found at https://matthewburnsideisawriter.tumblr.com.

Lately by Emry Trantham

On By okaydonkey7In poetry1 Comment

I have wanted to destroy things.
Throw eggs, one by one, into a broad tree

even I won’t miss. I want to hear the shell
burst, see the broken yolk drip-shine against bark.

In fantasies I buy every plate in Goodwill
and bring them home to smash

against my stained concrete driveway.
Hurl arch shatter, every plate I found

in Goodwill, every plate I placed in my cart
and hauled to my trunk. I want to shoot

things. Pumpkins, maybe. Finger to trigger
to a gaping exit wound, sticky pulp

and seeds blasted out over my front porch.
I have no gun. I have no pumpkin.

What I have is this apple, glowing red
and round in the palm of my hand.

What I have is this knife, sharp enough
to slice the thin dusky skin of the fruit,

sharp enough to carve its white flesh.
What I have is precision, what I have

is a plate full of apple slices
to take outside to my children.

 

Emry Trantham is an English teacher in Western North Carolina, where she is raising three daughters and writing poems. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Booth, Tar River Poetry, Carolina Quarterly, Noble Gas Qtrly, Cider Press Review, Cold Mountain Review, and others. She was also a 2019 Gilbert-Chappell Emerging Poet.