SOMETIMES I WORRY MY SKIN WILL GIVE OUT
And the fibers of beetle knit feelers protrude something awful. Something war-torn and deadly. Umbrella poked clouds where strings tie my balloon to the basket God gave me so it’ll sound like rain but it's the stitches popping open to reveal the darkness. Not the darkness they talked about in the movies as in the absence of light and not the darkness they talk about in books as in ugliness but darkness like you dug to hell and you kept digging. Past the danger past the fire past pre-orbital stars. Darkness like shoving your face into the bottom of the hell of someone else’s religion. Darkness like Tartarus. And the only thing keeping the darkness in are equally black stitches of moonlight. Swollen by the sea.
and the only thing keeping the darkness in are equally black stitches of moonlight. Swollen by the sea.
and the only thing keeping the darkness in are equally black stitches of moonlight. Swollen by the sea.
LA CHUPACABRA: MADE IN THE U.S.A.
with thanks to Tato Laviera
yo soy
(1. a HUMBOLT BORICUAN whose arthritis hurts most in the winter and their
not-quite-mixed-kids worrying about their nonexistent goats watching new yorican maria
and the island manhattan and i kno ju do-ing while finding rotten plantains smashed at the
bottom and surrounded with crystallized ice once picked by a cousin from massachusetts
but now brown-veined like the tampons washed up and nutritionless through
2. PASSPORT FREE TRAVEL to find black stones on beaches as proof of volcanoes or
picked up into a mason jar broken on a plane ride to somewhere in the midwest where
there aren’t crabs scuttling from unhungry grey feet or ten tourists feeding el pozo de
jacinto or a
3. TOURIST TRAP with white sandy beaches imported from the nearest rectangle who
can’t afford it and who don’t have the right to bear arms for an unvoted president nor
broken glass resorts remember el morro remember los roaches remember the funny way
they said thank you gracia por el
4. KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS and the telephone wires made of paper towel rolls so the
electricity can go out and still the natives are streaming sucking rum juice pouches on a
concrete porch that used to overlook
5. A DOG on the crossroads wearing all white to offset the mange like the clawmarks on
its viol de gamba playing faster than la nina la pinta y la santa maria)
un animal
n.a. gorman is a chicago-based writer from aurora, Illinois. she has a BA in music and creative writing and is currently pursuing an MA in creative writing and publishing from Northwestern University. she likes to write about monsters, mythology, and blood. she is also a classically trained cellist, and finds poetry in finger callouses. in her free time, she likes to do cross-stitch, listen to cryptozoology podcasts, and play with her dogs winston and elliot.