First published on Emotional Alchemy Magazine. Thoughts pervade, on par with cymbal clatters and the dishes you’ve left for too many nights and the potato starch has attached itself, limb by limb, to the pan. One dream circles, once and round again. In the middle of a day - a daydream noon - I find … Continue reading Alice in the bath
This week on My Screaming Twenties celebrates the release of Devika Mathur's collection of poetry and prose, Crimson Skins. Devika Mathur is loved and known for her celebration of the abstract and surreal; she plays with words like toys and bites into them like ripe fruit. Everything Mathur yields is original and unique. Even when … Continue reading Advance Review of Crimson Skins, Devika Mathur
This week on My Screaming Twenties celebrates the release of Devika Mathur's collection of poetry and prose, Crimson Skins. KRISTIANA: Crimson Skins is your second poetry collection, what has been the most rewarding part of reaching the point of publication? DEVIKA: Over the years I have grown into a more persistent writer honing my … Continue reading Interview with Devika Mathur
You were loud. Hovering vertically at my window. Demanding rather than asking to be let in. You did not wait; assumed if you made enough noise the glass would break, yield itself to your stripes and void-like eyes. You did not wait. You did not knock. There was nothing kind about your entrance; there was … Continue reading The wasp
The girl next door who plays the piano, begins her music. As her fingertips settle upon the ivories, I allow my mind to wander. Not to far off places at first, just to the end of the garden, stood between two lonesome oaks who, despite one another, always seem sad and companionless this time of … Continue reading Wanderings
By the end, Kenny coughed and spluttered throughout the day. Only when he slept did the gurgling nestled deep in his throat, stop. I knew it was the end - I'd known so for months. It didn't make the goodbye any easier; leaving him there alone, imagining the high-pitched squeal of metal on metal. The … Continue reading Kenny
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
For The Sender by Alex Woodard is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. Through letters, prose and songwriting, Woodard reveals how he unravelled his own journey of growth and healing by trusting the process and listening to other voices telling their stories. The letters from Emily, Kim, Alison and Katelyn cover a myriad of feelings … Continue reading Review of For the Sender, Alex Woodard
Last year began as the previous one ended - quite literally and in the sense I still had vast mountain ranges to climb. It’s a metaphor we use constantly but I couldn’t think of anything more apt; anything more deceptive than a mountain peak disappearing into the clouds. A few months into the year, I … Continue reading Age 25
STRESS IS AN OPEN DOOR "She is sat at the bus stop, arms crossed, when I reach her. Her eyes lift to mine as she hears my scattered breaths and clunky steps. I see in hers a hate and kindness I cannot untangle. Necklace chains of every emotion she must have felt in the last … Continue reading The Dee Diaries #5
