Let me speak plainly. Kindra M. Austin is not only my friend and an incredible writer, but my business partner at Blank Paper Press. If you are looking for a reflection of this book not steeped in bias, you may want to look elsewhere.

That does nothing to undermine my respect for Twelve, her newest release of poetry and prose. Nor does it mean I am incapable of critiquing it. As an anthology, it steers into its own darkness, and may not invite everyone quite like it spoke to me.

That said, Twelve is one of my favourite collections of the year, alongside Nicole Lyons’ Blossom and Bone and Austin’s novel, For You, Rowena. It ranks up there among one of the most heartrending collections I’ve ever read. This is because Twelve’s airtight narrative of bereavement gives you little breathing room against the barrage of Austin’s grief over the…

We were standing on the old sea wall,
one Saturday night in August.
I was looking out across the grey
and thinking,
“You are not like me.”
I was impressed;
you impressed my 18 year old naiveté.
I liked your history, that you were older than me,
and the way you held me
and your money
and your energy
and the way you smashed the punch-bag
on that boxing arcade game
with such might that it nearly fell over.
New high score.
New adventure.
New boyfriend.
New life.
You were a good dancer
and you made me feel safe.
But there was a very real danger in you
and that appealed greatly.
I lied to my father;
told him I was with the girls,
but I was steeped in drunken debauchery
with you, by the sea.
(He caught me.
I never lied to him again.)
He was disappointed in me.

I might be living a stolen life.

Not literally stolen, of course. I’m not one to believe there is a certain amount of happiness in the world, or that some just aren’t destined for it. Still, I know a few people who could have been here in my place. Women I never knew but who walked the same paper thin stage floor, women who danced on glass and fell through. Women who never stood a chance.

You’re bipolar? You must be incredibly talented. So many great writers were bipolar, did you know that? Agatha Christie. Virginia Woolf. Sylvia Plath.

But Sylvia died. She taped the door to her children’s bedroom then gassed herself to death using her own oven. As for me? I was born to the 21st century. I wasn’t burned a witch. My brain wasn’t fried on the table of an analphabetic doctor and my frontal lobe wasn’t…

The incandescent radiance

of a midnight living room

breathing heavily scented smoke…

sandalwood and roses with tobacco undertones,

menthol.

 

She’s been thrown against the wall; I watch her shadow

bend ‘round corners, taking the form of a cave dwelling spider.

 

Elvis sings Suspicious Minds; and my mama

subscribes—

they can’t go on together,

so she rearranges furniture,

as is her wont to rid his image.

 

I’m caught lurking in the hallway,

and she smiles.

 

She smiles.

 

A scene I desire to find again.

 

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© Kindra M. Austin  

Kindra M. Austin is a wife, mother, artist, and indie author from Chesaning, Michigan. Her debut novel, Magpie in August was published in April, 2017, and her book of poems and prose titled Constant Muses followed in December. Other publications include several poems featured in Anthology Volume I (Writings from the Sudden Denouement Literary…