Afternoon Thoughts, January 18, 2018

…the cherry tree has buds…mid-January, below freezing temperatures…and tiny buds have begun to form… …a long few days…today, a day to beat me down… …I don’t have my lotus to go to…so I went to the cherry tree…standing beneath and looking up…taking my armor off… … …let me bud through the biting cold…see me through to spring…blooming, bursting, thriving, flourishing… … …a tequila shot or three… …then a shovel and muscle to bring forth tomorrow… … …I should’ve heeded the rook…calling forth…under a moonless late hour… …I never heed the warning…I never heel… …too wild for streetlights and streetcars… …I’ll go naked in the walk, in the run, in the cliff side dive… …I know my home…and I intend on returning…as a dog eared probability…as a mathematical migration…as a branch of pink blossoms escaping… … …mud…ripple…exhale…

E.A. O'Connell

{Four days after writing this, I happened upon a rather fitting quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it."}

... {Edited}

They,
the Angels with soot coated wings,
feathers broken and still burning…

pulled me from my boots,
a hit and run impact so fierce that it leaves the socks still warm and foot full within shoes that bounce and roll,
as dice under casino fluorescent lights…

They dragged me by my wrists along July burnt asphalt,
and shards of distempered broken windshield
stripped me of my clothes and pressed me naked between pristine white sheets,
the dye of my flesh staining an imprint of my death…

the peeling of me,
like ice tearing from lips,
the methodical ripping of me,
quickly,
intentionally…

and then the wake up call,
the stubbing of tobacco cherry ash and fire pocking my body,
the stripping of my fingerprints and a blunt force to fell,
scalpels and bone saws to dissect…

DNA…

seeking,
waiting,
seething…

and no pain registering….

like children with a magnifying glass,
shards of slate,
and a violent curiosity,
the worms and bees,
and their resurrections at the feet of a phantom Christ…

gutted,
disemboweled,
exsanguinated…

and from the abyss of my soul’s tomb,
the forked tongue of a Gorgon sister,
slithering my esophagus,
flicking flint sparks at molar facades,
extending for the fruit of the sins they stripped of me,
the sweet of rabid canines trickling a stream of profanities down my chin,
my neck,
my breasts…

a failure at dismentaling me,
dismantling the bomb planted in my head at three,
the defiance and the will that sees me through,
like the pistol in my toddler grip as I hit every target directed…

So I find it nothing more than child’s play to annihilate Death,
his intentions,
his desires,
and his reign,
and cannibalize the very life they stole and placed in vials and scales beside me…

walking from the surgical lights towards the very street that stole me away that night…

and all the cameras,
security and otherwise,
capture the anomaly of a song in physicality,
the phenomena of stellular conception...

E.A. O'Connell

...

I caught a glimpse in the rouge of her face, eyes rimmed in an equal hue…glassine tears threatening…rivulets and blue…I heard her gasp in awe…camera obscura shadow and light…our backs to footfalls and laughter…rolling green…children and DNA factors…I saw it in the tip of her chin and the set of her lips…years in youth…unbeknownst to her…keeping me alive…decades succumb to adulthood…and I know it when I look at her…she was always the light, always the beautiful…she’s the kindness and my peace…and I never knew if I gave her anything but trouble and fear…never knew if I impacted her existence as she has mine…and then I heard it…the undertone of her words…the base note of us…I Got Used To Having You Here…and hell, if I didn’t want my hands on the throat of Death…banishing any possibility…I’d break her heart…break my promises…break our blood…all because I inherited the weak link…

E.A. O'Connell {September 2017}

Dream Series: Road {A Gothic Tale—Edited}

...cold, damp concrete in an after-hours parking garage...
puddles that vibrate with distant highway rush
                                      and
a harsh static light that triggers a seizure in my right eyelid
...frantic seeking, frantic breathing...
I'm being crushed by the weight of uncontrollable climate and atmospheric claustrophobia...
I'm losing to the wind that voices its anger and loss through cracks,
commanding the wilds of flora to suffocate their own young
{no life will make beauty in this hell}
...in a dark corner, clutching to her knees, a tiny face is buried...
the back of her dress torn, buttons in a gravitational pull on frayed threads, hanging on to absence
her flesh scratched, leaving cavities to decay
{no life will make beauty in this hell}
my fingers hover above pinpricks of blood that pool and harden like beetle shells
...Who did this? escapes from my fingers...
I'm too close within her space
...the tiny face rises with a wild eye stare, her head rattles a venomous warning...
fear implodes my pupils: iris ink wells and runs my face
my fear: she gnashes her teeth, snaps back at me in warning...
a progression of sound {silence accelerating}
...... GO ......
she sounds like a guttural growl in ever-echo
my eyes on the moons of her nail beds...
her hand rises before her face...
a relief map of time...
turning her palm, bringing it flush to my mouth...
the syzygy of we
{my eyes shut, I can smell May green}
she removes her hand, the deep scar within my lip...canyons...
{on the tip of my tongue I can taste a thunderstorm}
a progression of sound {silence illuminating}
...... GO ......
she sounds like a jagged stone thrown in a placid pool
...rippling warmth...
she begins to dissipate...
condensation puddles where she knelt...
my hands skim the silken surface...
my hands pull away and she sounds in the breaking of the bond
...... GO ......

...atop a parking garage ledge, eye-to-eye with the moon...
I release from the hold on my feet
{highway rush, trails of headlights: night accelerates from behind star spirals}

...the rise of a sun, blood orange at earth's lips...
I, from the backseat, count miles on the abacus of my spine
{with distance I gain perspective}
I've always wanted for more...
more words in earth song, more days in hill climb, more soul ache with the rising moon...
far from this car, far from this notch in time...
...... GONE ......  

E.A. O'Connell

Violet Light Violence {Edited}

Violet light violence
friction striking, seeking escape of my veins
—still in rigor fashion—lung reflex silent—
my dusted pulse animates in shadow peel, shadow step, shadow melding with atmosphere
—filtered light through bottle green bones—a porous drift song—
he carries languages of oceans long extinct
that slow dive through starling slick to a boiling chlorophyll-bio-luminescence
—a folk-like pixie light essence—
making an expedition of my fragrance
mapping me with pin pointillism pleasure
October wind through cattails and reeds, the marshy mirror of evening cloud scatter
—breeze of clove and seasoned earth—
fingers fall, hollow chords on glass strings
...exhalations... 
tissue flesh cracking, peeling
a Japanese lantern skeletal cage, the fossilized artifacts revealed
—fish bone lodged in esophageal well—herbal tinder ash in stoppered vials on rib cage apothecary shelves—
shadow leans, shadow steals
…gasping…
— persimmon glow in bittersweet heat—
his tongue tastes of Autumn setting fire to my nerves
...pins and needles...
my body of spider silk, bejeweled with mica and mist
—of exsanguinated flesh in mid-winter frost—
supples and burns, an amarayllis trumpet depth, but with sakura flush
I kiss him back
he mouths E-V-I-L to my neck
—lips devouring the decadence of each letter—
I laugh with a lust of star anise shape
foreshadowing his aftertaste, maddening my mind for days to come
—coastal asphalt and primeval sun—

E.A. O'Connell

Peregrine {Edited}

peregrine―
eyes feral and aglint with hunger
aerial morph of the winged huntress,
slow like liquid and plush upon one's thirst
        ―flow―
all the words,
the colors worn with names assigned
they don’t resonate,
it’s not their fever spike,
not their condition to be defined
not when pleasure alights the solar flare
        ―when silence escapes―
the clouds lend them form,
a simple pleasure not lost on tongues of currents,
a world in full rush,
as cars in screaming speed still the outside world
        ―stagnates their roll―
land,
a window-scape blur,
as dirt caked fingers shape the air,
pastel smear of dust and skin shed
        ―no farewells to bleed―
trees circulate,
their absence of defining lines,
where phantoms of secrets
steal woven avian breaths
their leaves expiring in the spark of astral chains
snapping with every vulpine wail
        ―headlight death in the thick of night―    
vultures circle,
pitch-on-pitch,
no rest for their hunger
their heights of hypnotic catastrophic inebriation,
steal from a grieving mind
        ―a hallowed grave―
shoulder gravel and rain hollow epitaph,
horizon wall of lunar eversongs
luring the acceleration,
beckoning to vacate the rear view
        ―a bare hand to suffocate―to amputate―from a world that can’t hold {me}
mirror shatters on concrete
a howl escapes,
leaked gasoline sparks and a glimpse,
eyes and padded paws keeping pace
―a wild thing frees ―

E.A. O'Connell

Mash-Up of My Writing {Writing Sample}

Asleep.  Wrapped in nosebleed soaked cotton,

her silhouette has been pressed through to the mattress in a carnelian stain.  

She’s the flower preserved between two sheets

in the name of a hunger that cost her the privilege of sound sleep.

In muted colors of night terrors seeping,

her neuro-fluid rushes in a rhythm of rain water flooding a storm drain,

leaving her head absent of equilibrium and near comprehended thoughts falling,

scattering like leaves in the scrape of claws on pavement.  

They flee the impending drowning

that will catch up with them at the cul-de-sac’s bend.

The spectral fingertips quietly spread out upon her,

caking her body in a clay mud,

painting her bare skin in wounds of rough bones, twigs, and stone weapons;

her body the war and the warrior.

Lifting her from the cold slumber, her limbs limp and head hung right,

her length of hair sweeps the cobwebs

and cold breath of the floorboards creaking in the wake of their footless steps.

Lithe are the hands of the dead,

a haunting toil of a surgeon’s precision with a new mother’s delicate touch,

stealing her body away to the pyre of sassafras and orchids

where they lay her upon the vessel of ceremony.

Commencing the sacrificial rite,

their rabid hissing and growling calls forth canine teeth and talons,

tracing the language of their desires into her neck,

painlessly slicing and folding back the flesh of her throat and meat of her tongue.  

Unhinging her jaw, they study scars in her teeth,

all the while seeking the source of her impenetrable silence,

while force feeding her the jackal’s whine and buzzard’s scream.  

She gasps a strangled choke as she is pulled into the sudden reemergence of life,

throwing her body over the edge of the bed,

coughing and spitting the taste of nightmares against the wall,

their long shadows hunching as they back away in a defensive creep to the window.

Turning in warning, they taunt her with the threatening of their return,

as they liquefy, running down the brick and mortar,

mixing with the rain, running towards the sewer grate.

The blood flowing from her head, out her nose, and through her fingers,

stains the memory of the terror to her thighs, breasts, and lips.

From the north corner of her room,

a new moon voice, reminiscent of  sub zero wind through frost bitten pines,

chilling her marrow deep.  

“When will you let your soul out to play?”

She doesn’t startle.  

Releasing her hands from a chalice pose beneath her chin,

her blood slips her palms to the sheets beneath her seated form.  

Closing her eyes to regain an equilibrium, she opens them slowly on an inhale.  

Her lips part, ichor-washed teeth barely on display,

exhaling a visible winter’s breath, she expels her silence in a hushed voice.  

“Blood. Stop summoning me.”  

“When will you despair, Small One?"

“Devil’s Hour. False shadow bravado. Blood cease.”

His fingers thrumming the darkness at his side,

as a thundering origins in his chest, soaring to his throat;

a guttural growl issuing forth,

indiscernible as to whether it’s an act of warning or amusement.

“Beneath my flesh. Crawling fingertips.”

Heavy steps carry him out of the shadows, stalking the foot of her bed.  

His nearly seven foot, beast-like physique,

broad shouldered with a horned head,

pale in comparison to the intimidating black abysses glaring at her.  

Steadying herself, she rises to her feet on the mattress.  

Her bloodied visage meeting him eye-to-eye.  

Without blinking or flinching, she holds her ground,

rooting in the knowledge that she is power.  

Her voice building in volume.

“Seizing my breaths. Fracturing my bones. Blood. Cease your hold.”

His massive hand darting out—stopping— just shy of clasping her throat.

An entity in its own right—silence— takes up residency between them,

sizing each up, before clearing a path for revelation.

“You..You fear me.  
Why else would you come for me through my mind—my blood.”

A hint of a smile reaching the left corner of his mouth.  

“Untouchable.  And so very brave.
I saw a crack in your foundation, Small One,
and I exploited it. I’m in there now.  Indelible.”  

A smile, equally maniacal, but ever more fierce,

slowly crawling the length of her lips.  
“As shall I, Mon Horreur.”

Without hesitation,

she grabs a hold of his wrist and forearm with both her hands

—no force or strain—just a moderate pressure to her clasp.       
“Pitch igniting.

A language I keep. Undisturbed.
Summoning. Blood—

Try as he might, he’s incapable of breaking from her hold.

“—& Fire.”

Her room immediately lit by the distinct smell of hide being branded...  

© Elizabeth A.K. O'Connell

Late April 2017 Journal Entry

It’s a deceptive day…late April flourishes…abundant in the blush of dogwood, the vibrancy of azaleas warm with fuchsia…delicate violets grow from concrete, lilacs constellate against the contrasting grey sky, rhododendrons flare as if in permanent twirl…dandelions button the fragrant grass, thick and uncut…white petals ghost the Spring mist, as cherry blossom petals are carried in the chill of the wind...it steals my breath just as it did in Winter...

E.A. O'Connell

She May Be {Edited)

She may be—

a guttural growl from an asphalt sinkhole
where screams in pitch of street light synchronicity
dazzle her eyes like hard candy melt
on her tongue— the taste of saccharine rocket fuel

—and she falls away, falls free, she gives to—

gravity pulling—
the blood running thin from her nose
like juice of a pomegranate
staining her fingers in the surface contemplation of her thumb

phantom lips wax and wane
as witness to a language homicide
—a violent ending to an incoherent thought

the blood runs thicker
slipping the dark caverns of her skull
silver coating the roof of her mouth to protect from the heat
as her body temperature runs high
the unconscious huntress
incinerating landscapes and inhabitants of her repressed mind
—picking them off one-by-one

they dissipate in sunburnt waves of viper percussion
atop a long stretch of desert asphalt
the tarantulas scatter
leaving ghost imprints in her vision, that make her swear she held them in her hand
like stunned birds recuperating from high-rise plate glass trauma

and then the frostbite seizes her bones, ceases the stream of consciousness

sleep-laced words slip the currents of her slowing breaths
—down, down, drowning in the swallow—
—and the death roll—

death extends to her—keeping a distance—he fears her still
he remembers her 
blood like star fire, or was it the tequila seal of her lower lip in kiss
—the permanence—
their fire eating reanimates life, if only for a moment, and she breathes
—shared lungs with a scar tissue tenacity—

her skeletal fabric remnants 
have begun thrashing in their chrysalis cell safety— morphing
the chemical combustion offers a slow pull into a suffocating disintegration
the insanity of letting go in the go
the blooming after wildfire ravaging

—a distant planet turns within itself—

—far, far, far-gotten—

She may be— 
earth static

She may be— 
the moon

She may be— 
the womb to birth a universe anew

E.A. O'Connell

Strange Beings {Edited}

Strange Beings: The wind blows forcibly. The leaves scratch and pierce the crowning night, their underbellies a thousand infantile faces: shrill― mourning in fate, in the disengaging and rearranging of a heart.

Funeral In A Matchbox: Burying a body with leaded glass wings, the burning gas of a star’s inferno mirrored in flightless migration.

Procession: Wrought cemetery gates, green muddy hills, runoff, and blood. Roots grappling the earth, lightning breaking and bruising bark, weathered ribbon ghosts fraying elegies over numb cherubin lips.

Funeral Rites: Risen in the moonlight and sacrificed as an offering to clock-working eyes― naked, burning, forging. Blood runs down my legs, as a stag’s eight points shatter and gore my pelvis― Death is morning glories vining, unwinding, wringing.

Resurrection: Maggots, earthworms, and insects alike, dismantling ruins, pollinators seeding pheromones― a soaking rain, an arid sun cycle. The birds that eat of their flesh, sing my essence― pollinators to petaled heads― bees brewing honey that taste of me― trees fruiting a nectar of me, that trickles down your chin with each insatiable bite― your tongue painting for your hands and mind’s eye― what my soul looks like.

E.A. O'Connell