Hello, Hamlet

As some of you may know, I’m currently working on a novel called The Cinema Stone and the Mattress Under the Tree which will attempt to convey the power of storytelling and the failure/success of one man’s pursuit of beauty (in the philosophical esoteric sense, but also I guess in the physical sense).  It’s a two-fold narrative: [...]

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Postponement

     I was the type of child who didn’t have an imaginary friend—I had thirty-one.  Their names were names I took from favorite books, from cartoons or movies, even from scripts I’d written out myself.  Their names were names like Kristy or Mallory (from the Babysitter’s Club, which incidentally, I’d never actually read), or names [...]

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Gatsby Ring

     Sometimes I look down at my left hand, and realizing I’m not wearing my Gatsby ring, I freak out.  I think of where could  have possibly have left it.  On a bathroom sink most likely (I’ve done it before, and gone back hours later only to find it sitting there alone unwanted, cheap and [...]

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Action Exercise: Nailbiting

     She understands that it’s a delicate thing.  And it’s because she’s obsessed with keeping everything even, keeping the small white spots pink, keeping the nail edges straight, that she does it. 
     Under mild flourescent lights, the point in her middle finger’s nail looks much more jagged, and this is how it starts: her elbows [...]

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Goden Character Background

Part of some exploration I did into a character named Goden, whom I completely abandoned.  Spring of junior year of high school:
     My school’s the kind of place you go to do things like learn.  I know that’s obviously what a school is, but what I guess I meant to say is that it’s the [...]

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Journey 3

To recover Alyssa’s lost power animal: I began with the same tree, same process, and it all went very fast this time.  I was only in the tunnel for a few seconds, before I saw my horse’s tail in front of me and he said, “Climb on,” so I did, and then he said, “I’m [...]

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Owain & Haile XXIII

XXIII.
It is a night in April,
when the clouds are conquering the
steel-edged aeroplanes,
with their pink fingers of
condensing water vapor,
that Haile wanders once again into the forest,
the fossil of his damp blue chalk
wedged between the spaces of her hand.
Even though she wears a floral nightgown
with ruffles at the bottom of its hem,
she sees herself as only dressed [...]

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Journeys 1 & 2

As some of you know, I’m currently taking Edie Turner’s Shamanism class here at UVA.  And because several of you have asked about how the first few journeys have gone, I felt like this would be a lot easier than me telling the stories over and over again.  I’m not going to explain any terms [...]

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Owain & Haile XXII

XXII.
She believes that there is such a space
in between the strands of hair
between the places where it meets her skin,
where some unknown dust
collects upon her ear tops.
Under her eyes, black waves
in remaining shadows of dark kohl.
And on the calendar by the icebox,
with six hundred real red xs.
The sleeping never comes too slowly,
and when her head [...]

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Owain & Haile XXI

XXI.
He is startled by the butterflies
Haile has caught, preserved, and
clipped into the mountains of her hair,
the painted ladies and the
spicebush swallowtails.
It is the first thing that he sees
as he stumbles through the door,
his leg caught in the sieging of a limp.
But by the time he’s touched her shoulder,
he feels the urgency to part her lips—
to [...]

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