It's Just A Flower
Olivia Gunning
“We need a gift that’s really her,” I said. “Really Sophia.”
“Could you define her?”
“A truly independent mind, a renovator, a cultivator.”
One day, recognize your malformed loneliness like a tumor in your throat.
The first thing I realized was that my legs weren’t broken.
Welcome. Please don’t take my talking as an assault to your personhood.
Treat
I want to be rewarded for my good thoughts. My good purchase. I want free shipping. Gentle handling. I buy eyeliner. The felt tip, and pointed. I want someone to clap. I buy steel boots. I
“We need a gift that’s really her,” I said. “Really Sophia.”
“Could you define her?”
“A truly independent mind, a renovator, a cultivator.”
I flipped on the lights, turned up the furnace, and cranked some Stevie Wonder.
Since they had moved to Orangeville, Trudy found she could no longer distinguish Kevin from other men.
Cosmogony
In January the birds awakened mid-
flight. In February the bats left
their cave and we called it abandoned.
In March a civilization arose
and fell. In April a ream of gauze
unfurled,
On the morning of my sixteenth birthday I made a list of stuff I didn't believe in anymore.
scare tactics
I grew hands by the dozen
I was a generalized reaching
clasping monster it was
not a dream shared or
otherwise it was neither
yours nor mine nor ours
the scariest
“It was misery, real misery. But, Doc keeps telling me I’m all clear, so I ain’t going to argue with him.”
"What am I supposed to do?"
And christ it's gonna be hot inside the tiny bar where SUMAC is playing tonight. I should've stayed home. Like I always do. An old man on his couch.
i know it’s not something you really need to hear—i’m just one of many fans—but can I just take the opportunity on this comments section to say, i really love how you brush your hair
I don’t feel like I’m very good at writing a serious story with super realistic violence and human emotion. I feel like it has to be filtered through some kind of absurd or weird lens.
Did we go to Boston twice or did all this happen in one trip? I remember two different rooms but we used to change hotels all the time, just to feel like criminals. Once we stayed in an old converted
The kettle boiled; I made the tea,
And when I turned around,
I saw she’d set the cups and placed
A third one for the skull.
please believe me
when i tell you this
when i tell you of the high concentration of uranium and thorium
Lucy seemed to love being shocking.
I was small and fragile like the antique vases in her parent’s living room, the ones we could lookbutdon’ttouch.