A Poem I Recently Had Published By Zetetic Record.

Not super important but my abroad application is finished! Hopefully I’ll get to study at Exeter in England next year. Anyone go there/ know info about it or want to share their experience? 

Icing The Bruise

and we pressed the water till it gave way to bone and marble— you, with your voice coated in pond scum, say that muscle must be some afterthought of river and history. even if it’s only a statue’s legs and hurt, there is still a blood to stone if it’s  set up as a body.

empathy kicks up like a reflex the size of a carbuncle buried in the side of kneecap. 

we go into the forest and lay palms on a riverbed of clay, pushing as if on the chest of someone breathless;

there is a heart to this somewhere— and it can be called up from the sleep of the day like some story where Tiresias keeps his eyes open the whole time and doesn’t tell anyone why. 

in a bite of lamplight, he stands up to say I love you. he says it slow so he can feel it in his mouth, rolling like a marble with no glass to put its body in. no one is there to take it, but it is still true. It is snow falling, looking for concrete. 

              - c. essington

color palettes

               - c. essington 

Writing game: How about a phone number scribbled on a bit of paper, two dollars in change, a pen, a receipt for a restaurant, and a pack of cigarettes?

Sure thing, thank you. 

Inventory:1. A phone number scribbled on bit of paper2. Two dollars in change3. A pen4. A receipt for a restaurant 5. A pack of cigarettes

There is a piece of paper in my pocket, folded twice over, like pigeon’s wings, or my tongue in a fight, or how I sleep when I’m sad. It’s white with black print and it says that I should be full by now. There’s also receipt from my dinner. After eating through six truffle mushrooms curled in oil and laid over pasta, I left with some coins in my pocket and not much else, my mouth ringing with salt and linguini and fungi I can’t afford but swallowed anyway. 

I’m not full yet despite the seven digits that sit like a brand by my left thigh, so I take out ink and cross them into black hashes. There is being bloated and there is being starving and I’d rather fit in one of those places than be left alone in the middle, a stranger’s affection listed to me in numbers. 

I light something and watch it dwindle, a white column of paper singing in orange and going grey. I think that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing too. It’s not great, I’m still hungry and aching and made of willow leaves and molars, but I can stand upright in my name and store my grievances on the dark sides of my quarters and breathe like I love it, but don’t really have a reason for it all the time.  

           - C. Essington

Thank you for this and your support,

If you want to play this writing game, send me a theoretical inventory of five items in an ask and I’ll try to write a person for it. 

How To Take A Radial Pulse

maybe this has been one of those nights that I’ll come back to later, to outline in crayon and label softly, drawing looks out from the eyes like water from a well. well,

all days have sore ribs, burnt nerves, places which go tender under threat but this one feels like something particularly loose and abused enough already, something which will just  go to heaven if it’s ever touched again.

there is something memorable about hours way too made of blood to ever bleed. 

it’s not going to hurt to put fingers on this: the dim around the pizza box around the carpet around the working anatomies around the exactly seven kidneys. 

it’s not going to hurt it’s just going to all come back in through the palm, one pressure at a time, working just like the un-music a heart makes to keep a head. 

                                   - c. essington 

Short story of mine published by Spry Magazine— check it out if you have the time and interest to do so. TW for some violence. 

tiny painting for a small day/

it’s not sunday but it felt like one because

work is sloww

drawing excerpt.

How To Take A Radial Pulse

maybe this has been one of those nights that I’ll come back to later, to outline in crayon and label softly, drawing looks out from the eyes like water from a well. well,

all days have sore ribs, burnt nerves, places which go tender under threat but this one feels like something particularly loose and abused enough already, something which will just  go to heaven if it’s ever touched again.

there is something memorable about hours way too made of blood to ever bleed. 

it’s not going to hurt to put fingers on this: the dim around the pizza box around the carpet around the working anatomies around the exactly seven kidneys. 

it’s not going to hurt it’s just going to all come back in through the palm, one pressure at a time, working just like the un-music a heart makes to keep a head. 

                                   - c. essington