"When"
2nd Place Winning Story of TL;DR Press's 1K Word Herd Competition 2023, published in the collection, "Curios"
Creative Writing
Short stories and poems
Road Rage
Whenever I think I’m losing it, I imagine my daughter’s head exploding. That tends to calm me down.
We were part of the first wave based on all the charts they released. That was a bad day. I sat in the backseat during Kate’s driver’s-ed exam. An ambulance blew past in the oncoming lane, blared its siren, and the instructor told her she failed moments later. Kate was livid. She screamed back that the ambulance hadn’t turned its siren on until it was right in front of her. The instructor didn’t p...
We were part of the first wave based on all the charts they released. That was a bad day. I sat in the backseat during Kate’s driver’s-ed exam. An ambulance blew past in the oncoming lane, blared its siren, and the instructor told her she failed moments later. Kate was livid. She screamed back that the ambulance hadn’t turned its siren on until it was right in front of her. The instructor didn’t p...
"The Adolescent"
Short story included in Nope 2: Too Late; Didn't Run (TL;DR Horror Anthology)
Bargaining
I remember when my world divided into male and female, when the girls screamed "Shaun has cooties!" across the playground and flushed with what I thought was anger. I remember being in a closet with the enemy, chapped-lipped and terrified but trying to pucker up for victory. It doesn't change as you get older, you just get taller and the stakes get higher. You may even start bargaining: If we're both forty and haven't settled yet, come find me. We'll figure something out. Get hitched. People do...
Credo
I believe the poet’s hair has always been a plume of smoke caught stiff in winter air. Their voice has always spoken overwater, carried through the fog to reach mein the morning. I believe that they havealways worn their collar button loose, andalways tapped their finger to their head whenopened to a spark of humbling wonder. I believe a day will come when my hairtoo will have always been white, my leg beenlame, my eyes weighed down by beauty, by theselight-box cryptograms...
Blind Charity
Short story included in Beneath Strange Stars: A Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction Anthology
Orthodoxy
My bounds were drawn in pleasant places
where my father called me out.
Running while he worked I was free to imagine
my way across infinite worlds, out of breath
at those lines inscribed for me:
the cut of the creek, the bank of
the river, the fallen fence shown to me
as to Job: I was the tide, the sea
to whom Father said, “This far
you may co...
where my father called me out.
Running while he worked I was free to imagine
my way across infinite worlds, out of breath
at those lines inscribed for me:
the cut of the creek, the bank of
the river, the fallen fence shown to me
as to Job: I was the tide, the sea
to whom Father said, “This far
you may co...
"Tsukumogami"
Short story included in TL;DR Press's "Nope: Horror Quarterly"
