I’ve watched the clouds and tried to read the blue in between like tea leaf dregs in the bottom of a cup. I’ve opened books and unrolled maps, blown the wisdom from their wizened surfaces and tried to sow my seeds into their earth, left to stare glassy-eyed at a failed harvest. I’ve … Continue reading Books & clouds
Originally published on Reedsy Discovery. I expected Conversations with Women to be about women through a male gaze. I expected to grimace at Campbell’s attempt to capture the female experience. Both expectations were to be proven false within the first few pages. Campbell provides an outlook which is original and unique; an outlook which challenges … Continue reading Review of Conversations With Women, Cebo Campbell
Daffodils look sad in the rain. Pushed against the hillsides bruising a mustard yellow, losing all of their sunshine and the smiley faces I imagine hidden on the inside of their petals. Weak and failing, praying for the wind to let up, just for a day. Poem: © Kristiana Reed 2020 Between … Continue reading Spring rain
I find myself yearning for another time, for the solitude I became accustomed to. I have forgotten the unhappiness and I see strength in my hollowed out cheeks; I forget the weight I lost, I forget how little I ate, the grief in my throat for every part of me I’d given away to someone … Continue reading Yearning
A rope hangs, pulls taut, over the edge of a cliff, love clings to the knots, swinging above an abyss masked by settling cloud. Above there stands a figure, a shadow against the sun, and in their right palm sits a knife, emboldened by the disappearing light, it glints in all that is left and … Continue reading A rope hangs
I want to be as poetic as possible so if the Brontes were alive they would make me a heroine all starry eyed with violence, or Blake would call me a song of both innocence and experience. Ovid would wish to dance with me, turn into monsters and flowers with me, because my poetic sensibilities … Continue reading Poetry
I remember being pocket sized and five, taking violent delight in the teacups at the fair, the chipped pastels merging with the beach huts lining the shore. The fair was held behind their stoic line, the faraway homes who betook wind and rain with a smile, and I always wondered if the goldfish bobbing in … Continue reading Five, at the fair
Route 62, the pink and purple bus fading like a disappearing sunset, which always passes beneath a lamp which flickers - the orange eye wearing a halo of feathers, the seagulls too far from the sea. Homeward bound - bus ticket in hand, paper turned redundant, used and crumpled, left in a pocket to fall … Continue reading Route 62
The clouds strode defiantly through the sky like your bottom lip kept stoically high; for which you were always admired, the girl who took life in her fists and held it beneath the water before it could get to her. We watched them float solidly and gold at the edges while we kept secrets, lying … Continue reading Keeping secrets
When S. K. Nicholas announced the X and I snippets on his blog were to become a novel, I stopped reading them. I knew at that moment I wanted to read the novel as a whole; I wanted as much as possible to be a surprise. I knew it would be beautiful. What I did … Continue reading Review of X and I, S.K. Nicholas
