Interested In Liminal Spaces. Interested In The In Betweens. Rest Stops. Airports. Schools At Night.

interested in liminal spaces. interested in the in betweens. rest stops. airports. schools at night. late december. teenagedom. purgatory. grief.

today’s date is the 3rd? what’s next, the 4th? the 5th? the minor fall, the major lift? 

 — E. E. Cummings, Etcetera: The Unpublished Poems of E.E. Cummings

[text ID: But I’ll live my life if it kills me]

when it comes down to it everything is about ghosts except ghosts, which are about love

My short story, How Does an Orca Pray, is out now and free to read in the latest issue of Reservoir Road Literary Review! This story has gone through loads of edits to get to where it is now, and I can’t thank the editors enough for believing in the story and helping me with that final push. 

This is story about the complexities of faith, gender and co-dependency. It follows a trans narrator trying to understand their dysphoria and disconnect from their womanhood, trying to understand what masculinity is with the limited image of it they grew up watching, and ultimately realising that masculinity and gender can be whatever they want it to be. It also follows the unique relationship they have with the boy they’re arranged to marry, and the way they bond over their shared discontent. I love this story with all my heart <3 

content warnings: christianity/religious trauma, pregnancy, childbirth and child loss 

[image description: a screenshot of a short story opening, written in a black serif font against a white background. the text reads: 

Mama told me that the Baptism is the most important part of girlhood, because it’s when we stop being girls. I was twelve, still tucked snowdrops into my bonnet. My body shapeless, my prayers humble, I thought it was good to be a girl of God. Moonlight spilled through the curtains when my sisters woke me.

Fall leaves lily-padded the water. The girls hung rosaries around their necks and braided each other’s hair, and I imagined their braids as eels. Delilah held my hand to the lake and I kneeled in the grass with Mama as the girls kneeled in the water, pointed prayer hands to the sky and bowed until they submerged. Mama said my sisters were ready to be mothers, so they needed to be cleansed, to float like babies in utero. I was quiet, but I smiled, because one day I would be a mother. But the Baptism, as I understand now, was a prayer to the water as it stung your lungs, as it embalmed you in your womanhood. /end id]

one of the longest non-descriptive paragraphs in prestissimo, con dolore is entirely a serious discussion of which blackwood sibling is most likely to believe in ghosts