luaemeia

[luaemeia]

She ripped a bit of her nail out and chewed it like gum.

“It’s pretty simple, really. Can you open this jar?”

I can’t tell what it’s in the jar but I banged the lid on the leg of her bed and opened it with a pop. It reeked of dust and something akin to chalk. Dried worms came to mind but I didn’t ask.

“It’s spider legs, by the way.”

“Jesus christ, Emily.”

“Oh, relax. It’s not like I’m killing them and ripping their legs out.” Her laugh sounded as dry as the god damned legs. Coarse, hairy, dead. She hummed and walked over to a door, creaking it open slightly. “You can look if you like; it used to be an annexed pantry but it’s not been used since forever. They crawl in there and starve to death.” I didn’t move.

She plopped down next to me again. I should feel weird, I think. This is weird and I should be weirded out. The bedroom is cozy, I’ll admit; quirky little furniture draped in yellow doilies, mice hand painted all over the walls, a quaint little rounded window over the bed. Bright, luminous. What the fuck was I getting myself into? She’s just Emily, the girl in the yellow sundress, and I’m in her little yellow room feeling like a little mouse in a cat’s mouth.

“What are we doing, really, Emily?” Emily Emily Emily, my tongue upset at the tone of it.

“We are passing time. To be honest, I would like to pass enough time to catch death and trip it before the finish line. You know what I mean? Like, if I made it past her, I could see something else. Win, basically.”

“And what the fuck do you think the prize would be?” I should leave, and I am glad that stayed in my thoughts and didn’t stray out of my mouth. She’s harmless, we’re kids, it’s witch play, really. Sure. Witch play. I can pretend to be a witch. Is she pretending, though?

She juggled the open jar between her hands, tossed a few spider legs onto the floor and played them like a puzzle. I hope I didn’t offend her. We’re not supposed to swear.

I can’t say for how long I watched her move those legs around, her golden hair too bright under the sun (I realized then how everything was so yellow, so full of light, even her eyelashes glowed) but her face, her face. A doll’s smile, really. A crude imitation of joy reminiscent of someone who would like to fake happiness into being but has a mind full of shadows. She was humming a sad fickle tune heavy with nostalgia and I would like to offer comfort but am glued to my spot, my own (very attached, thank goodness) legs tingling with the ache of stillness and still she moves elegantly, arms of a ballerina, crossing and twisting those little specks of dead insect like a winnable game.

They’re runes. She’s making runes out of dead spiders.

Emily. “Please,” and I hadn’t noticed but I think I had been saying it for a while, but she hadn’t noticed either over her soft singing (or, maybe, just pretended).

Little sweat beads crowned her forehead and it was lovely like a summer’s day and for a second I wanted to hold her hand and drive her to the beach, commune with the salted water and laugh, laugh for real. I think that was the most adult fantasy my little girl brain ever conjured. Everything for Emily.

“I just want him back, you know? Hug him, I guess. Tell him I miss him. I miss him…” And all of a sudden the golden haired girl was gripping herself so tight she was a touch away from breaking; or maybe she was so broken already she was just trying to hold herself together. What a weight to put on a hug, but oh how much like glue they can be.

“Emily…” I don’t think I’ve ever said words this razor-sharp before or since, but I drapped them in as much cloth as I could, hoping they wouldn’t cut too deep. “Emily, you can’t bring someone back from the dead… and certainly not surrounded by the dead, either.” I gestured vaguely to the stiff remains and felt as stupid as she felt hollow. I wish I was a witch. I would have given anything, anyone, myself to grant her the damned wish. To this day I think she’s a mind reader. She most certainly isn’t a witch but I swear she can read my mind, because —

“Can we pretend? You’ll hold my hand and I’ll hold yours and we can pretend. We can pretend it’ll work.” She stretched her arms and she was shaking so much the whole room felt like it was vibrating. The fucking life in her would have brought god back to life if he were dead. Her father would have lived a thousand more lives. I think she cried an ocean, then, in that split second, and how could I not try? We were witches of course, for however long we needed to be. And what’s a spell to a witch, what is fate to a child?

—————————————————————

It was autumn by the time she answered me. The leaves on the trees were as golden as her, and she was a child again (we had stopped being witches after that day). She pressed her feet to the dirt and stopped swinging, and I followed the motion. It was golden hour but every hour was golden hour when I was with her, now. The sandpaper feeling had become the lick of a cat’s tongue — which is to say, in my child brain, my distaste had turned to fondness — and I wish I had had the time to fall in love with her.

Grief had been taking her, I think. Slowly, steadily, not even the gold she was made of would have been able to fix the cracks in her if she hadn’t decided to share it with me. She was brighter now, gleeful. She still liked spiders; I gifted her one as a pet and she took to feeding it a bit too much. Just to be on the safe side.

“I think I know what the fuck the prize would be.”

“God, Emily.” It would have been the same word if we hadn’t been so young. “I’m sorry I used that word. I was scared... I shouldn’t have been.” I hung my head in shame before looking her way. She was smiling, a sweet end of summer smile. “What’s the prize?”

“Closure.”

— l.amb, for @nosebleedclub, I & II & III & VI & X.

#luaemeia #nosebleedclub #september prompts #antihero #final summer rites #dead insects #soft singing #necromancy #grief #loss of a parent #I don't like writing dialogue so this was very challenging for me #it was also very heavy to write if that makes sense #it could be improved but I like it in the end #can emily read minds? #is emily a witch? #or is discomfort an emotion she's acquainted with #golden child

[luaemeia]

prima (adj.) /priːmə/ meaning: the most important performer or role

as in

first I fell in love with you. I put needle to skin like pen to paper and your name on my body was like the mark of the beast; holy ground turned sulphur soil in just about the same amount of time it takes to repent with a hail mary —

then I fell to my knees, praying to your mother like a believer to a god why would her son not love me and she would say I don’t know, I don’t know, you’re a good girl, I’m sorry, I’m sorry

and oh how shameful to kiss the feet of a stranger and beg them to bless your soul but oh what a sacred ritual oh what a hopeful superstition that one day I would be baptized enough for you —

then I gasped for air like a salmon for water, flagellated flesh bumped and bruised from the hard kiss of rocks, breaking bones in the pursuit of a sturdier spirit and wouldn’t you say, then, if even saint anthony preached to fish, are they not worthy of love, and wouldn’t you extend me the same grace?

only a false saint would turn everything they touch to sin only a false prophet would embolden themselves with the cremating of a heretic only a false angel would claim hell of scorching earth only a false preacher would see the mark of the beast

but oh, what is a religion without an enemy if not you without me?

prima (adj.) /priːmə/ meaning: the most important performer or role

as in

how you would take me to hell and burn yourself in the process.

— l.amb, for @nosebleedclub, XI & XXII & XXVII.

#luaemeia #nosebleedclub #september prompts #prima #salmon #false saint #creative writing #writing three prompts together was challenging but fun #love me some dictionary poetry #toxic relationship

[luaemeia]

and oh I say, how my eyes have met the golden sun and god themself, a golden-crowned sparrow, their melodies dawning onto me: have you forgotten your crops? and I say my love, but am I a farmer? they sang, speaking: must you be a farmer to reap? have you sown dishonesty, disloyalty, disillusion? and I answer my darling, I am humble, I am kind, I am human.

as it was god became a silver knight cicada, the loud buzz exclaiming: you have faltered like all before you and all after you and I see with your eyes the seeds of your awareness. are you not ready to harvest? and I say my muse, thus shall be done when death lends me her scythe and I walk through my soul’s garden unashamed and unpolished as perfect as you made me.

alas god was a golden carpenter ant, and her silence exploded in my ears: reclaim your wit and repossess your wavering wisdom! there will be no testament to leave once you depart from this, the land I have given you! for the land is your life and your bounty is what you have lived! the uncollected produce of experience will serve no one other than yourself and no later than now! child, grow as tall as wheat and as simple as a sunflower, stem and bud and blossom as far and wild as a dandelion (and god was a dandelion and I was a dandelion and I was the wind that propelled me and I was the wind that propelled god and god was the wind that propelled me)

and oh I say, again, how my eyes have met the golden sun and all of you, my darlings, my beloved, and I pray to you today: we will harvest and we will feast, and we will savor what our hearts have sowed, so let us hope it is not poison.



— l.amb, for @nosebleedclub, VII & IX.

#luaemeia #nosebleedclub #september prompts #morning visions #harvest #what is more holy that the collective #would we eat what our heart sowed and would we trust our community enough to eat each other's crops? #deity #prophetic

[luaemeia]

In the deepest parts of me, what do you see? When I fall asleep, do you count the seconds between my breaths, do you fall asleep to the background noise of my ramblings, do you fear when I scream?

Tell you what: let’s breathe together.

I’ll kiss your mouth, your nose, your neck. I’ll stitch a red ribbon around your clavicles and kiss, kiss, kiss. I’ll put my lips to your ear and breathe, put my ear to your lips until you breathe back. Call it meditation the way we become still and hungry for the softest exhale, the way we thirst for air like dying whales. Oh to die the littlest of deaths.

Tell you what: let’s ramble together.

You’ll tell me your deepest darkest secrets in writing and I’ll burn them right in front of you; stuff the ashes into a little jar and toss them out into the sea, let the sirens cower in fear of them, let them sink deeper and deeper until they are sand in the ocean - and then I’ll teach you how to swim.

Tell you what: let’s scream together.

We’ll take our clothes off and draft a river of sweat, wandering fingers making goosebumps, chrysalis in our tongues, the language of butterflies etched into the fabric of our skin; the sacred drowning of our passion / the holy water of our temptation / the baptism of our becoming / the gentle reading between the palm of our frantic hands / the echoing chants of the fates carved in our throats /

(my lover my lover I am running out of poetry)

/ we die and die again, a mass of forbidden rebirths and your body is as beautiful as a spear plant bloom, eyes like rain in a desert and baby,

you’re all the water I need.

— l.amb, for @nosebleedclub, IV & XIII.

#luaemeia #nosebleedclub #spetember prompts #clavicles #spear #biblical #water #wlw poetry #creative writing #spilled prose #fate

[luaemeia]

One espresso macchiatto please.

The automatic grinder holds the portafilter in its lap and whirrs, grinds, the trapped coffee beans slowly lowering and leaving a slight greasy coating on the inside of the hopper. Fourteen beautiful grams get spat out by the machine and rest, mountain-shaped.

Tap, level, press. It’s a dark espresso roast and it smells like toast and walnuts, rich, dense, filling. A perfect breakfast smell all day long. Everything goes quiet when the machine gets to work, slowly dripping the coffee over two espresso cups, the rich and decadent colour almost resembling gourmet cocoa spread.

The steamer foams the milk with passionate kissing sounds, shiny microfoam swirling effortlessly around the small jug, waiting to be poured; – a dance erupts between white and brown and out comes a bright white tulip, sitting pretty atop the cup.

Tap, set, deliver.

I am a barista, and this is my craft.

— l.amb

Espresso

#luaemeia #writing #creative writing #coffee #espresso #writing prompt #flash writing #short writing #prose

[luaemeia]

— l.amb

30min writing session // @nosebleedclub // transcript below

You were a collage,

yellow-dribbled honey over crudely torn pictures of wild peonies, a description of perfume sprawled all over

[a sweet base of summer peaches, engraved in a wild rosewood carving of a broken heart, a vanilla-sea permeation long-lasting]

you tasted like butter cookies photographed over a tartan kitchen cloth, golden and fuzzy with blur, an aftertaste of waspwings somewhere over your tongue and cloudy babyblue skies all over your eyes

was it too much,

that I saw you so superficially deep, so artistically removed from yourself, so naturally objectified?

darling baby, if I had only known I was ripping you apart - piece by piece - perhaps I would not have painted you so yellow joy, so golden hour, so flower stamen; I would have lingered over the blues, the wild rivers, the crashing waves of you…,

you live in fragments, I think, embedded in the cracks of me, where I failed to glue you back together [on purpose, on accident, ran out of glue and didn’t make it to the corner store before it closed, I don’t work on sundays] and in shame, I think, I keep a piece in the top drawer of my nightstand, so I can see you in my dreams;

after all, I created you in my image, and I can no longer face myself in mirrors.

#lailamber #luaemeia #nosebleedclub #creative writing #writing session #collage #inspired by tumblr collage posts

[luaemeia]

You call it a family dinner but when I walk in the room all I see is you.

You, a mangled and dirty child, tear streaks staining your face clean among the dirt. You look so young but you look so old, so damaged, and I wonder there’s any of him left in you.

You, embarrassed and smelly, your face red. I know who this is because you’ve told me his story once. “On my first day of middle school I was so nervous I pooped myself and I had to tell a teacher so he could call my parents to pick me up, but they didn’t” you had laughed at the time but I didn’t, and I’m not laughing now either. Was it ever funny, I wonder, and your twelve year old face tells me that I am right not to laugh.

You, an awkward lanky teenager with headphones and a big black coat that clearly isn’t your size. I don’t recognize him because you don’t talk about this part of your life at all. There are no bruises but there is also no confidence, him hunched over the plate, hands on his legs, waiting patiently for his turn to eat.

You, in boxers and disheveled hair, sweaty, anxious. “My sexual awakening was a bit weird”, I hear you say, but none of you spoke.

I sit beside the familiar you and he is hungry, but there is no food on his plate. This is you, I think, and I open my mouth to speak but a hand touches my shoulder instead. It is your hand and your face and a smile but you are behind me, not beside me. I no longer feel safe, I think, but in my mind it goes “I NO LONGER FEEL SAFE” and I leave the table. I look at him again and he is a wolf, all claws and blood and whatever the fuck he is eating I know it came from me because the plate is still empty and I am lightheaded.

You call it a family dinner and suddenly I know why I’m invited.

— l.amb

Discussion 4/30/21

1. Variations 2. Tied 3. Hidden jewels 4. Engulf 5. Family dinner

#luaemeia #creative writing #writing #prompt response #nosebleedclub #prose on tumblr #spilled prose #words #trauma #predator / prey dynamic #3rd #May #2021 #May 3rd 2021

[luaemeia]

i           peeled oranges left unattended, tattered rind scattered drying under a lonely sunbeam. a flowerful towel set atop a circular rosewood table, lonely antique plates creasing it ever so slightly. pressed bouquets let their perfume dance along the pages of an open journal, a cat twirls her tail lazily on a windowsill. it is summer, the children carry grass blades under their feet and the creek carries fresh water and croaking frogs.

ii           death dresses itself in honey but smells of brimstone. a forest after fire covered in corpses, mushroom caps blooming like flowers under stale air.

iii           silence.

the wind rustles the leaves like feathers of a bird. a creek speaks sounds of water and fish splash somewhere in the distance.

silence.

an abandoned shoe hangs from a branch. half a granola bar covered in ants, a beetle scurrying away with purpose. odd misplacements of human presence scattered about, tainting the quiet.

warning.

a deer crosses your path, nervous. an alarm rings, distant, unnerving, unnatural. your skin buzzes, your shoulders hunch. you feel like prey, alert but unaware. the environment shifts, the ground shakes.

siren.

static static static all personnel proceed with caution this is not a drill please stay where you are do not trust the voices of your loved ones static please baby where are you I need your help static remain calm do not panic it is normal to experience a feeling of helplessness static it will all be over soon

death.

iv           the mother of my mother was a child once, clutching the skirt of her mother for comfort during stormy afternoons and mild fevers. her mother would say "child, how dangerous are the woods, and how frightened they are of us."

she would crochet thick woolen scarves and brightly coloured dream catchers, line the windows with crystals and make mycelium soup for dinner. she would say "child, if you devour death, maybe you'll live forever."

oh great, grand, mother, bloomer of women and weaver of generations, how fitting of earth to bring your whispers to me, burning sage to summon your knowledge. tell me "child, the thread that binds us is as ravenous as citrus pith, all tightly woven and entwined in the very fabric of our veins; child, with growth comes wisdom and you are a tree centuries in the making."

v           mind ●●● /mʌɪnd/

noun, verb, malleable

mechanism by which we have created the process of thinking, a poorly designed simulation of free-will;

a fabrication, fallible, easily manipulated;

anxiety machine;

(but what if it can't be controlled? oh dear, that was never intended to happen. then why did we make it? to bring them peace. alas; it has brought them nothing but pain.)

          — l.amb

Discussion 1/22/21

1. A kinder era 2. Overgrowth 3. Cryptozoology 4. Great grandmother 5. Mind control

#lailamber #nosebleedclub #creative writing #prose #prose on tumblr #writing #writing prompt #women writers #writers on tumblr #writeblr #orange #mushroom #siren head #witches #mind #Dictionary Poem

[luaemeia]

It is what it is, they say           it's like a prayer, you imagine them pressing their hands together and posing their expressions with the beautification of mother mary's sacred suffering etched sloppily on their faces and a holy hum of "it is what it is, amen" what a beautifully god-written justification for the extermination of change, good for them. don't take up too much space now, that's not how it is!

it is what it is, they say           as they make you smaller, bit by bit, politely asking you to please keep quiet, please let them talk, let them explain, let them finish. pray, pray, pray, all prayers and offertories waved in your face (morals offered like dollar bills, what a sanctified gift) - forgive us, repent, repeat - what a timeless amalgamation of violent proclamations beneath a gold ornate layer of togetherness. careful how you live, don't breathe so loud, don't look so crass, don't move so confidently, that's not how it is!

it is what it is, they say           and the rule of threes comes to an end, time’s up; you grab their words like wood, use your anger as tinder and set their church ablaze, burn them at their own stake, ignite the revolution. isn't this how it goes? everything old has to die and everything profane must be exterminated, time to make space for new rules.

it is what it is, you say.

          — l.amb

Discussion 1/29/21

1. Shiba Inu 2. Late night adventure 3. Extermination 4. Basilica 5. Unripe

#lailamber #nosebleedclub #writing prompt #creative writing #spilled prose #writers on tumblr #writing community #writeblr #women writers #30th #january #2021 #january 30th 2021

[luaemeia]

I am frightened of the thing that laughs.

It echoes in the dark and bounces off the walls and I - in the middle - stand or kneel, soul-crushed and unholied, and am unsure.

It laughs with teeth and its sour breath suffocates my throat (predatory and knowing of me) and spills my secrets from a tongue I do not recognise. It beckons me with fingertips touching bent vertebrae of a soul made piano /

    / unmelodic and all theory / crisp notes that wail in fear / silent void after a curtain drop /

    (doubt reverberating mildew falling soldiers laughing sins docile)

    and the crashing of the waves reveals the same siren call over and over again like a backwards clock /

I am there, here, in the dark with the laughing thing.

It laughs in the dark to scare the fear away and I laugh with it for it is me.

— l.amb

#poetry #prose #creative writing #echo #laugh #mental illness #self

[luaemeia]

We have flesh made of fireflies and curved spines made of sunken bones and hopeless hoping, monsters living in the dark circles of our eyes and in the space between our teeth; we’re made imperfect and blamed for it, crushing souls from birth until death parts us from the humiliation of living in a world made for them in spite of us.

We scramble to breathe the moment we arrive and are made to scream all the way through like a sacrifice we never knew was in the contract of life but here we are and they can’t be stopped but

we can’t be stopped either so we pick at our scabs and never let the wound heal to remind us to keep fighting against whatever they are until our breath is taken from us with forceful silence and hatred in disguise but remember how they can’t break us because to them we were born broken already

but god carved the same scar into all of us, even them, even them

even if they hide their own, we can see it and we know it, they bleed from it just like we do, that’s how badly they want to hurt us before we hurt them, because if we see their blood dripping we’ll want more and

you’re not so different from us after all, are you?

and we’ll force them out of their pedestal, they shiver and sweat at the thought of it

so here we are, scars blazing, the fire in our eyes burning the monsters away until all we have is ashes on our hands and broken ground beneath our feet, bones healed and lips smirking because we see our future in their eyes but in the end they’re blind and dying and we were born oh so much stronger than they ever saw possible -

- and when the war is over we’ll be the last ones standing, fireflies in our eyes and flowers in the space between our teeth, lips smiling because we saw the future and we took it for ourselves.

— l.amb

#prose #writers on tumblr #feminism #creative writing #prose on tumblr #social commentary #from before #spilled ink #spilled prose #spilled words #persecution #war #women #women writers

[luaemeia]

The silence smells like you.

It fogs up my eyes like the smoke of the cigarettes that twirled in furious jealousy when your lips melodically echoed the purrs in my throat and your fingers humoured the flow of my thighs.

A golden light dances quietly, breaking the smeared window glass in a make-believe attempt to caress the vacant walls; a pretender’s love gone with the dusk. The walls, illusioned, warm to its touch only to grow colder and darker as night falls, becoming the shadows they imagined locked away in the attic of their thoughts.

A dead stillness in the air sends a hard sigh across the floor, emphasizing the coldness where your footsteps no longer linger. Abandoned ashes litter the soles of my feet and crumpled sheets lay dead upon the forgotten bed that once memorized your name.

My arms twitch suspended in time, a bouquet of scarlet flowers blooming downwards from my heart to my veins to my mouth to the ground; a mute flatline weeping for a heart that beats to try and fix a heart that no longer does.

l.amb

#lailamber #writing #creative writing #spilled prose #inkstain #spilled ink #writers on tumblr #lit #prose on tumblr #silence #love #five senses #loss #grieving #breakup #relationship #golden light #scarlet

[luaemeia]

— l.amb

10 breakfast with (a) god // napowrimo prompt by ragewrites

#lailamber #merulia #napowrimo20 #haiku poem #haiku #creative writing #writing #breakfast with god #napowrimo #poetry #freeform poetry #poetry on tumblr #spilled poem #god #god speaks #breakfast #morning prayer #pray #war #coping #quarantine #inside #april #april 2020

[luaemeia]

it's 4am somewhere and in the lupine night I follow your soft fingers tracing mine with a hunger that calls for a puncture and a casket & sure the thing that bites is ripe around my neck all predator & sure the wood fits tight like cages on a bird & sure you could talk me through my own funeral, lend me your jacket to keep borrow me deep in the dirt until I run out of oxygen or check on your prey and shine a light on a mouthful of maggots & sure ask me if I'd do it again another morrow.

— l.amb

09 the overmorrow // napowrimo prompt by ragewrites & vivisection // napowrimo prompt by avolitorial

#lailamber #merulia #useraya #napowrimo20 #poetry #poets on tumblr #spilled ink #spilled poem #freeform poetry #seduction #vivisection #overmorrow #night #dating #death #casket #inkstain #hidden rhyme #funeral #oxygen #puncture #napowrimo #april #april 2020

[luaemeia]

i honeybaby eyes, I know you're looking at the passing lights wondering if your soul, too, will be swallowed by the midnight sky but not even a dark hole would swallow something so beautiful

ii if a train leaves suburbia at midnight with two people and doesn't stop until they reach the end of their story but their lovers are on another train how messed up would that be?

iii honeybaby the moon is full and I know the wind keeps pushing you back but I promise I've seen the future in the palms of my hands when they hold your own

iv the future can’t keep up when you’re going ten thousand miles per hour and the past is all over the tracks sprawled open like a wound crawling into the gaping mouth of an earth made cemetery even the train doesn’t stop where I am but can you blame it v I don’t know where I’m going but I know your hands won’t take me there.

— l.amb

08 overheard on the midnight train // napowrimo prompt by ragewrites

#lailamber #merulia #napowrimo #napowrimo20 #poetry #writing #love #unrequited love #train #spilled ink #spilled words #poetry on tumblr #poets on tumblr #writing community #writers on tumblr #overheard on the midnight train #april #april 2020

[luaemeia]

— l.amb

07 cloud six // napowrimo prompt by ragewrites

#lailamber #merulia #napowrimo #napowrimo20 #visual poetry #poetry #cloud six #seduction #perfume #dating #writers on tumblr #poetry on tumblr #seductress #soft boys #knife #april #april 2020

[luaemeia]

Dearest,

    love should be a soft thing like a flutterbird     or the smell of spring and yet it rages in me like winter storms,     all consuming white and I am a fool falling for the cold moon

    how wolves howl in desperation is how my soul cries for you,     still you can't hear so I carry on demented in want and if only I could put it into words

    I want to write all over your skin     with my tongue and my lips and the tips of my fingers     what a beautiful love letter that would be if only,     if only

    deliver me the heart that beats in you     I'll drink your body like honey and read of your soul like papyrus

    could you breathe for me, dearest, my lungs tire of oxygen

    a writer will always write of what he knows and     if these words hold your mirror, what do they say,     what do they say, every sentence has its ending but if periods are bullets then darling,

    don't shoot the messenger, he's already dead.

— l.amb

06 love letters // napowrimo prompt by ragewrites

#lailamber #merulia #napowrimo #creative writing #spilled ink #writing #love letters #love #writer's love #muse #writer's muse #soft thing #darling #unrequited feelings #unrequited love #death #april #april 2020