Publications.
You can click on the under-lined text to read my debauchery in each (respective) published format; or, feast your eyes on the text below.
Liturgy of the She-Goat
Published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal (October, 2025).
In this short-fiction/psychological thriller piece, a notorious—and debauched—liturgy is rumoured throughout medieval-era Ireland, girdled to a she-goat, her hovel, and an archbishop. As the clergyman crawls down into the hovel, will he be able to sic himself deep amidst his ecclesiastical theology? Or, will a bleating of dissension bring him undone?
MY SOUL, DEVASTATED BY WHAT WAS ONCE ITS OWN, longs for the liturgy of your embrace! And it was said there was a peculiar stable, one on a riverbank near dank reeds and past the raspberry bushes, wherein a white goat and an ivory lady bleated in harmony throughout the night.
They called her Vavata—the clergymen and the farmhand, for even knights of sterling pauldrons and sanguine-diluted gauntlets would visit her amidst the forenoon. Come nightfall, the farmhand—older than even a proper archbishop within the annular prairie—would disappear within the wych elm hovel and no one, not even the flock of ravens that pecked leisurely at the carrion strewn around the farm, would see him emerge until sunrise. Every forenoon, when the knights rode by on their loyal steeds and greeted the farmhand with a proper greeting, talk of the alleged depravity within the hovel never fell upon deaf ears. The Surly Knights of Camelot! The Depraved Virility of Liturgy! Oh, none of it mattered to the farmhand; for he had Vavata and his goat.
However, when Archbishop Lóegaire appeared in the farmhand’s scoliosis-sunken doorway, drenched solely in the tears of the violet sky and the grime in which the prairie nourished in bold, it was clear that Vavata would soon retreat to a new home. No man argued with Archbishop Lóegaire, and the farmhand only grimaced as he stepped aside—clad in his pale, linen garbs as though he were deep in slumber moments prior—allowing the archbishop to admire the rudimentary air of the quaint, little farmhouse. And he asked the farmhand: ‘You live without unrest on this verdant land, yet there are no oxen or boars! Is it you who fertilises the soil?’ And he turned to him, to sneer at the farmhand, as he finished, ‘Or is there another of whom we shall consider?’
The farmhand replied with haste: ‘You speak of Vavata. Come, I will lead you to her,’ beckoning forth the archbishop as he hurried outside and toward the wych elm hovel. The dark rain that fell from the clouds only drenched the farmhand and his late-night visitor, but neither seemed to remark on the arrogance of nature. ‘The hour is late, Your Grace. I fear she may not take well to any visitors.’ And it was clear that the archbishop had come to visit under the most shrouded of circumstances, as haze-addled clouds of perforated blight and needle-driven speckles of rain plagued the prairie in a way no sane man would have left his abode—not even for Vavata. But this member of the clergy only saw the scourge of the weather as a grin from God.
And so, the archbishop asked the gangly farmhand: ‘Does she usually take well to visitors? How about those who are brought forth by the apostles? I am certain she will not dissent in my presence,’ and he raised a bushy brow, ‘or my efforts.’
The farmhand dropped his head in a show of fatigued respect. ‘Aye, Your Grace. She will not dissent before a man of God. She has been rigorously fed, herded, and shorn. Vavata is a good girl—you will see.’
Archbishop Lóegaire only frowned in turn as his jackboot grazed a sludge of shit. ‘Of where do these droppings come from, I wonder, if there are no animals to be seen?’ But the shrill bleating that then sounded stole the archbishop’s hardened gaze from the farmhand, and instead, he bent down to smooth his fingers over the coarse exterior of the hovel. The farmhand looked down to the archbishop’s pristine garbs—much like Vavata's stark complexion, each threading and filigree was of ivory hue, but the grime that now embraced the vestal hems caused the farmhand to grimace. And the archbishop asked: ‘What bleats in the night with such fervour?’
Following this vain inquiry, the two stood there in utter silence. The farmhand only waited for the clergyman to first move, and when the latter began to pick at the slender shavings of wych elm along the surface of the structure, it was clear that Archbishop Lóegaire was ready—and rather impatient—to enter the hovel.
‘I must ask,’ the archbishop hissed, ‘is she with child?’
The farmhand only smiled—his teeth rotted with urine-imbued varnish.
At this, the archbishop frowned; though, his display was devoid of teeth. ‘You will not see me leave, come morning. Goodnight to you.’ And of this remark, Archbishop Lóegaire was certain. Then, with a curt nod to the farmhand, his half-bent stature disappeared amidst the wych elm.
As the knights had once whispered amongst the clergy, rumour was actualised: Vavata was a radiant, sentient painting of adolescent beauty. Her ivory locks spiralled down past her small-sloped mammaries and around her glistening, slender thighs. Hushed whispers percolated amidst the infantry that the farmhand used scented starch to colour her locks a snow-crested tinge, and the archbishop only sighed with a haughty smile as he fell to his knees and thanked the Lord for such a thing to be true. And he introduced himself—as Laoghaire Lóegaire—as he ground his palms into the dirt in which the wych elm lay, but Vavata did not speak a word in turn. Like Medea, she sat there, sprawling legs spread and conceited arms at her sides as she watched the archbishop bow and whine upon his knees. Vavata—she was a presbytery in her own right. But her eyes, with the hovel being much too dark to discern the true nature of, remained unblinking, before the archbishop merely gasped as he took notice of her left eye.
In place of vestal dimples and frail eyelids, a perforated sheet of swollen epidermis resided. It was utterly crude—the amalgamated nature of the frailest feature of all—for how would he look at her, Vavata, as he took her through the night? Then, the archbishop recalled: Vavata wished for her eyes to match those of a goat; she entrusted a scalpel to draw the iris out into a horizontal line, but she only caused herself partial blindness and a permanent clot of disfigurement. He could always rely on the veracity of knights through their vestigial banter.
It was then that Vavata's lips, frigid and chapped, took the archbishop’s ear lobe between her teeth as she whispered—voice shrill and blighted by viscous rasp—not once to be repeated: My soul, devastated by what was once its own, longs for the liturgy of your embrace. Where had he heard that before? But by the time his own features had washed over with bewilderment and unease, Vavata's malnourished stature utterly melded with his own—thighs clinging taut to his plump waist, skeletal fingers reaching greedily toward his groin; and perhaps Archbishop Lóegaire was further clothed than any man who had crawled into Vavata's hovel, for the young female groaned and ground her teeth as she attempted to bury her digits amidst his trousers. Archbishop Lóegaire only watched in mere dissolution as his desire contorted to life at the pulpit of her dissenting fingers.
Suddenly, his warm, calloused hands gently took hers within his own—as though to quell her haste, to tell her to slow down, to pace herself, regardless of her being in the hovel. But Vavata nipped in retaliation.
‘You bashful whore!’ the archbishop yelled. ‘Burning shame! Where are your manners?’ Vavata nipped, again, at his hand, only this time, he countered her canines with a slapdash slap across her mouth. He hissed and his lips swelled as his hairy fingers gripped at the young woman’s chin, tugging her toward the liturgy of his embrace. ‘Where are your manners,’ he whispered—again, ‘where are they?’ But her eye—the one that had not been seduced by a scalpel, a human one, the she-goat’s transfixed eye of anthropoid piety—burned into the archbishop’s pale, whiskered skin. Here, he whispered once more: ‘Why do you reject my embrace, she-goat?’ And she bleated.
Here, Vavata rose from the soil and reached for a silver pail that lay in seclusion in one of the four, dank corners. Eye bearing straight into the archbishop’s, she positioned the pail between her legs and squatted atop the annular farm tool, before a stream of steam spiralled down in a gilded frenzy. She carefully took her nipples—one at a time—between her fingers, but the archbishop was quick to rise to swat her own digits away; and he assumed this role, squeezing gently at the tender buds as he watched Vavata throw her head back and groan. With far more desperation than he had anticipated, Archbishop Lóegaire cradled the she-goat and brought her back down upon his waist. Without any form of protest, she then ground her hips against his clothed groin—before beginning to bleat without end.
‘My soul, devastated by what was once its own, longs for the liturgy of your embrace,’ she whispered. Then, she moaned: ‘My soul, devastated by what was once its own, longs for the liturgy of your embrace.’ And she cried: ‘My soul, devastated by what was once its own, longs for the liturgy of your embrace!’
The archbishop pushed the young female off with a disorderly haste, and he grabbed at his chest as he began to cough and attempt any way to clear his throat and nostrils of the vile stench of the hovel. In his haste, the pail had spilled all over the squelching soil, and Vavata screeched at this blunder. Practically pouncing on the clergyman, the she-goat wailed as she sicced her teeth onto his laryngeal prominence. Again, she grasped at his hands—his large, hairy, shaking hands—and she slapped them against her pale mammaries. She pouted, and Archbishop Lóegaire could not bear such an unseemly sight of a young lady. So, he used his manly hands—his God-given gift, the Reaper of Vestal Epithelium—to milk her.
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
The forenoon carried a bitter scent amidst the prairie-air—a concoction of urine and damp soil—and when Archbishop Lóegaire awoke, he watched the goat and her pale complexion as she butted against the rotting and perforated door. Wearily, the archbishop rolled over onto his side, grimacing at the dirt smears along the white of his linens. But the ethereal sight of the goat, as her legs wobbled and her head rubbed against the coarse surface, stole away the archbishop’s frustration. His trousers were buried beneath the empty pail in the corner, and he made quick work of brushing his hand against his frigid manhood; it looked as though it had been hanged by a careless headsman—full-moon welts branded into the skin with the curvature of some diagonal-diseased cross, slithering all the way down the girth into a tangled pubic mound. With a sleek hiss, Archbishop Lóegaire allowed his length to fall from his grip, and he hobbled over to join the goat. Patting her head, he slapped the tip of his hanged member against the bleating animal and watched that damned muscle spring back to life. He cursed himself into the soil and he swore to repent for his curiosities. But Vavata had become something of an apostle within the hovel, and Archbishop Lóegaire couldn’t seem to bring himself to weep at his betrayal of celibacy.
When Archbishop Lóegaire left the wych elm hovel, he took careful notice of the farmhand, who was seated in a nearby pile of sopping forage. The latter grinned at the clergyman, beckoning him forth as he cupped his grime-speckled hands in the shape of a half-crescent moon. ‘Good-morrow to you, Your Grace.’
The archbishop smiled in turn, placing the silver coinage in his sweat slick; in his other hand, he held the leather lyam. ‘Yes, it appears so.’ He opened his mouth to speak another remark, but he decided against this as the farmhand stood and looked down to the she-goat.
The farmhand twirled a string of forage between his fingers, humming as he spoke, ‘Aye, take care of her. Make sure to milk her twice a day. Remember, Your Grace—she’s a milk maiden, so you won’t need to impregnate her.’ And the archbishop only bowed his head at this—a show of unwavering respect, for the farmhand did not demand any sort of acknowledgement from the clergy; Vavata's voyage to the presbytery would be kept secret. ‘That is all, then. Farewell to you, Archbishop Lóegaire.’
Clicking his tongue, the archbishop turned on his heel and headed off through the prairie—the rollicking grass of Boyne Valley, the uncharted marshland, until Scurlogstown could be seen. His goat never once bleated during the trip. Verily, Archbishop Lóegaire would forever remember the liturgy of her embrace—for once they arrived inside the gilded annals of God, the archbishop collapsed to his knees and bleated. Vavata hobbled past him, and then, his God-given vision blurred; for the last thing he saw was a goat trapped amidst mosaic tile and mural-fettered glass.
Across the Marsh
Published in 7th-Circle Pyrite (September, 2024).
This archaic short-fiction piece of folklore was nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize.
Nobody batted an eye while the man with the carrion-crow mask handed the little girl flowers of violet. Not even the young farmhand, who stood by the dank estuary with a slender torch and makeshift antler horns of wood. Turning away from the tall, strange man in the woods, the farmhand slipped back into the firelight of the village festival of Samhain; the final day of October was setting upon this village, with the moon in a deep shroud behind grey clouds and rousing smog. A shrewd chill caressed the fair skin of many village folk, but the blazing flames and veiled costumes warded off the frigid omen.
In tandem, sultry oranges and fiery reds danced off the slender and depressing beak of the stranger, as he remained on a single knee in front of the little girl. Prominent cracks and shavings of deteriorating birch were beginning to show on the faded white of the bill, and those two eye-holes were merely part of a sunken lake at dusk. Still, the little girl grinned and giggled at the ridiculous mask, bearing her own pair of tiny, wooden antlers.
She asked the silent and dignified man: “Why doesn’t your mask look like the others? It looks dangerous and pointy.”
The stranger’s head lowered slightly towards his chest, brushing against the mantle of dead leaves; these crisp and colourful pigments of nature lined the entirety of his neck, acting as a warm pelt one would wear during the winter solstice.
Slowly, he reached the backside of his leather-gloved hand to brush down the little girl’s cheek. “Ye are fair, but ye danced around the flame of cattle thrice sunwise.” He spoke softly, as though this voice did not belong to him.
Perhaps it was stolen—his voice. And maybe yet, the little girl knew this, for she now wrapped her arms taut around the nearest fir tree; her village had been blessed with their rich verdants, warding off bitter spirits from entering their tiny village in Meath—a spacious and Holy land of Celtic worship and Pagan practices unto nature, surrounded by a vast woodland and towering spirits of festivity.
“Where would ye like to go, little one?”
The carrion-man’s voice was silky, but the hollow of the wooden beak recused its butter-slick tune—muffling the inquiry with a freakish reverberation.
The little girl paused for a moment. “Where do others dance? I think I would like to go there.” The gifted flower stung sharply in her hand, but she held it tightly as she mumbled into the old tree.
And so, the tall man with the carrion-crow mask took her tiny hand in his, sauntering slowly towards the quiet marsh ahead. Craning his head back to the raging flames of the Samhain festival, the carrion-man watched as many humans danced their sweltering flesh around the heaps of offered livestock—many hopping and tripping into loved ones as they hesitantly threw away their spot in the dance. Of course, it was obvious as to why this was; the souls of the living were never ready to face their awaited fates on the night of Samhain.
When the little girl turned her face to stare up at the carrion-man, her golden locks formed their own mantle at the base of her neck. “What is the flower’s name?”
“Wolfsbane,” he answered, without so much as a breath to ponder.
The little girl giggled with a childish croak. “Does it nip?”
A curt nod was the only response that left the carrion-man’s rangy stature. Slowly, he took to his knee, dipping two fingers into the murky bog that rested, now, at their feet. There, he mumbled a chant of sorts—one which stole away the little girl’s curiosity as she stood in timid nature behind the man; for before her eyes, a gargantuan monster of shimmering verdant and fallen leaves emerged from the deep water. Upon meeting its beady eyes with the little one, it bowed its head in a plodding manner, paying no mind to the carrion-man.
“Oilliphéist, I require assistance. Imprudent passage across the marsh would prove unbefitting for this young one.”
The water-serpent, known as Oilliphéist, reared its long and slender neck as it glared down upon the carrion-man. “Is the dusk of Samhain arrived yet?” it spoke in its baritone bite.
The carrion-man nodded his head as he reached a careful arm around the little girl’s shoulders. “It has, Oilliphéist.” The disquieting crow mask tilted upwards slightly, causing a few leaves to fall from his cloak to the ground below.
Once more, the serpentine creature looked down towards the little one. Then, it sighed.
The carrion-man did not join with Oilliphéist in staring at her. Instead, he continued: “I have met with the one who danced thrice sunwise. Thus, I am to be granted passage across the marsh, for this flower will never bloom in such a dank locus.”
Oilliphéist scowled with a burning grin. “An appraisal of mankind may yet be in order.” Then, it brought its snarling snout and piercing fangs down to the little girl’s height, brushing tenderly against her clothed chest of ebony and white.
The carrion-man cupped his hands together as he gestured for the girl to use his palms as a stepping stone. Giggling, she practically leapt off the makeshift stool, wrapping her arms around Oilliphéist’s viscid neck with a content sigh. “Your turn, mister!” she exclaimed with a rosy tint in her cheeks.
The carrion-man did not appreciate his calling of that honorific, but Oilliphéist seemed to quite enjoy this shroud of discomfort that now clouded its backside.
Quickly, the masked man launched himself up onto the thick tail of the creature, holding on with shaky arms as his beak now pointed down towards Oilliphéist’s slippery flesh. The girl laughed at this.
Here, a guttural purring emanated throughout its serpentine stature, nearly knocking the carrion-man off its jagged tail.
“I think it likes us,” the girl chippered. "It reminds me of our field kitty. But I’m not sure if Oilliphéist enjoys chasing crickets, or not."
The carrion-man clicked his tongue, while Oilliphéist craned its neck to bare its fangs and smirk through its slimy snout. “My body is not privy to versatility, but I do enjoy watching little rodents cower and squirm,” it remarked, staring down at the man who was holding on for dear life.
He’d had enough. “Let me up, Oilliphéist, or the wolfsbane will wilt!”
“And let it!” Oilliphéist bellowed.
Not startled by the water-creature’s sudden encroachment, the little one suddenly stretched out her smooth arm, reaching for the carrion-man as she grunted a huff of discomfort. “Take my hand, mister! Oilliphéist’s backside is certainly tricky to stay seated on!”
The serpentine monstrosity laughed with thunderous applause. “Only when a poison lurks near my scales, little one.”
“Oilliphéist,” the carrion-man bit back.
Immediately, Oilliphéist’s scales rattled and peaked, and its flesh grew quickly frigid in the bog. The carrion-man’s cruel slick of his tongue had finally penetrated the creature’s tough scales; here, it hoisted its tail out of the water to allow slippery passage to its backside.
“We will travel across the marsh, to the bed of wolfsbane. There, we will dance until dawn.”
And then, Oilliphéist set off through the murky water, gliding silently downstream as the three passed many sunken trees and odd creatures that cackled and hummed as they all met eyes. But Oilliphéist’s strokes through the bog soon slowed, as a ribcage of rotting trees and fir ancestry depressed inwards. Here, a cascade of violet flowers began to twirl down from their decaying branches; many kissed at the little girl’s cheeks, while they fell furthest from the carrion-man.
She took notice of this immediately, sliding down the hump of Oilliphéist to reach him. There, she fell down against his chest, bracing herself as her arms wrapped around the crisp cloak of the carrion-man.
“Why aren’t the wolfsbane nipping at you, mister?” She looked up at the daunting serenity of his beak.
Quickly, he pulled her close—holding her to his silent chest, as he grabbed a gentle pallet of golden hair. With a whisper, he spoke: “Because they know only life.”
Oilliphéist came to a steady halt as the wolfsbane began to fall from the trees in a mere maddening waltz, obscuring the girl’s vision as the carrion-man pulled away from their still embrace. Then, he slid off the creature’s scaly tail, before extending a gloved hand to her.
“I think my feet hurt, mister.”
But the carrion-man reached his arms out to take the little girl in his own, being careful as not to drop her into the abyssal stream of the marsh below. Oilliphéist reared its head to look down at the both of them, with a dismaying amount of ashen smoke circulating its gaping nostrils.
“Oilliphéist,” the carrion-man spoke with a slow nod. “I thank thee, as usual. Until the next dance, may we meet.”
Oilliphéist dropped its head to conjoin with the carrion-man’s height, before whispering in its thunderous tone: “Go n-ullamhuighe an diabhal teinne dhuit.” And the serpentine water-creature set off into the dank and dreary marsh, its verdant shine disappearing quickly into the thick mist.
The little girl watched with her hands balled together against her flat chest, nodding farewell to the creature with an uncertain grin.
At this, a reclusive chuckle left the carrion-man’s throat. “Tell me, now,” he whispered gently, “how supple are those soles ye bear?”
And she grinned like a toddler as she pinched the silky hems of her dress and kicked up her feet from the frail mulch.
“I use them to dance,” she exclaimed.
He took her right hand, smoothing over the faint beginnings of youthful veins with his large, leather thumb. “Naturally so, little one. Then, would ye fancy a dance around my glorious pyre?”
“Yes! Oh, yes, mister, I would love that!”
With his hand still in hers, the carrion-man nodded down at the little girl, leading her by the hand as their shadowless figures disappeared into the forest. No birds were present to chortle hopeless birdsong for a dawn that would never come; still, the wolfsbane fell silently in tandem with a ghostly wind, taking on the figures of saintly songbirds in the little girl’s eyes.
Upon sifting through pointed sprigs and mounds of dead leaves, the pair reached the grand, sultry heat of a pyre. Immediately, the little one ran off towards the encroaching heat, which, to her surprise, did not sway the blonde hairs on her arms; because there, prancing around the convivial rocks and logs, were tens of cattle with thick tufts of fur and limbs, all intact. No fire was to be found, but the bleating of cattle filled the air in a much friendlier manner than flame, crackling in the little girl’s ears as she eagerly fell into line behind a stout cattle—while one of gangly stature pranced at her rear.
They didn’t speak. Only hundreds of beady eyes fell upon her, horizontal pupils stretched thinner than a raisin, as they stared into the front and back of her golden locks. Still, they danced in their large circle, now hobbling to their hind legs. The little girl quickly wound her arms around the two cattle beside her, flicking her ankles upwards as she pranced along the soft mulch.
“Those antlers complement those golds just beautifully! O, it is only in my nature to fall envious!” the stout cattle spoke.
The little girl’s eyes widened as she watched the animal’s pale muzzle align perfectly with the chipper, feminine speech.
“Really?” the gangly cattle added. “I thought they were the fangs of some rapacious hog!”
The little one swiftly shook her head, laughing as she caught her breath from the intricate dance. “It is an honour to speak with you both! I’ve always dreamt of talking with such strange creatures.”
Immediately, the gangly cattle reared its head back, bleating loudly with a snort. “What a preposterous accusation, young lady!”
“Strange?” the stout cattle blurted out.
The third voice that followed was from that of a male cattle. “You, too, dance thrice sunwise around the pyre. Do you not?”
“You’re right,” she replied. “You are not strange. Across the marsh, none of you are afraid to dance around the fire. Back home, nobody dances thrice sunwise.”
Standing, arms dangling stiffly at his sides, stood the carrion-man with his splintering beak and soulless gaze; for a man with no eyes to look into, nurtured no soul. His cloak rustled against the ground, as countless leaves were whisked away from its virulent drag. Quickly, he fell in line with the cattle dancing opposite of the set sun, to which the little girl’s hand disappeared within the dark leather of his gloves.
“Across the marsh, they aren’t afraid to dance!” she shouted over the bleating.
He looked down at her brittle antlers. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
She nodded along. “Oh, yes, mister. I think I quite enjoy it across the marsh.”
Carefully, he slipped more wolfsbane behind her ears. “Thank ye for passage, little Niamh,” he whispered.
Then, without a moment to puppeteer her smile any further, she collapsed into his arms.
​
⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅
​
The first peak of the new dawn began to shine through the twisted and cruel branches of the woodland, causing the cattle to fall out of line and bleat amongst one another. A light grey now seduced Niamh’s fair skin, twisting her youth into rot and decay; but the wolfsbane remained untouched, tucked far behind her ears. The very sight of such a pretty thing nipped bitterly at the carrion-man, and he leaned back in solitude as Niamh’s face grew sunken and dry.
Slowly, he cradled her in his arms, stalking towards the abandoned pyre. Here, he placed her down against the dark mulch, allowing the Earth to taste her fair skin for the first time. The dirt parted for a moment, inching back from the girl in its distaste, before the small wolfsbane fell from her ears to the ground; it was quickly swallowed up by the leaves, to which the ground then took Niamh into its motherly embrace.
The carrion-man, of course, never learned of the little girl's true name; Niamh had been prodding at his throat from the moment he had first handed her the wolfsbane. He suspected that the gold of her hair and the divinity of her youth had placed that name upon his bill; and perhaps learning of her life across the marsh would have sullied the grace of her being. But that was the dutiful call of the wolfsbane, and the carrion-man swiftly shed his deathly mantle, scurrying into the final, remaining shadows of the new dawn.
There, beside the amalgamated twist of branches and leaves, remained the abandoned pyre, wrapped around a bed of youthful wolfsbane; and in the middle of it all, were the slender sprigs of two, makeshift antlers poking out from the mulch.
They complemented the pyre beautifully.
Of Anecdotal Vampires
Published in B222 journal (October, 2024).
This eerily salacious short-fiction piece was originally published in the B222 journal 2024 Fall Issue for the theme, "Heebie Jeebies."
The weight of aged and withered fingers lining the base of my neck felt morally intolerable, but ethically insatiable. No longer had the calendula light of the sun cradled the small windows between the lecture hall’s wooden beams. I sat in the middle of the circular room, empty lecterns elevated on the dramatically uneven mahogany floor. And there, standing behind my creaking chair, remained Professor Lieven Van Leeuwen—clad in a dove-white lab coat and hefty, black boots. His slow and calculated steps echoed throughout the annular hall, as though a musket were firing rounds at some otherworldly creature.
An unusual winter had dawned on the city of Bristol, and the thin sheets of snow—akin to silky linen in a quiet storefront—had adorned the tiny cracks between our cobblestone roads. Professor Van Leeuwen had addressed the plummet in temperature; whichever student chose to partake in his nightly experiment after the lecture would be rewarded with an exemplary letter of recommendation to take into the medical world, as well as an accompanied walk home after hours.
We had only just begun tonight’s experiment, but I was already looking forward to the escort back to my apartment. The air inside the lecture hall nipped at my skin. I could feel the tips of Professor Van Leeuwen’s fingers growing cold and uncertain. But he spoke, still, in that silky baritone—always as though he were merely musing to himself, rather than speaking to a student. ‘Your neck stings quite pitifully. I would like to warm the skin further.’ The sheer density of his Dutch accent enticed me to adhere to every proposal slung my way. ‘The human nervous system is an anomaly like no other. Of course, the flesh that accompanies it provides a simulacrum of understanding into its mystery, but otherwise, we cannot discern the exact reason for its primal reaction to’—he sucked in a breath, squeezing gently at both of my shoulders—‘touch. Human touch.’
I froze. The lecture hall was dark, save for the dozen candles lining the second row of every lectern; I hadn’t noticed that our combined shadows endowed the wooden banisters with an amalgamated creature of the dark.
Clearing his throat, he continued, ‘Vampires are a work of fiction. Salacious fiction, yes, but the denominator always remains—thus, human blood is a priceless delicacy, and man thirsts after it like some nightmarish fable. But, this is precisely why I wish to peel back the skin of fiction, and indulge in a taste of anecdotal research, myself.’ Here, he prodded his plump syringe at the side of my neck. ‘Now, if you would just tilt your head back for me, we can begin.’
I clutched and scratched at the wooden arms of the chair, my flesh having long receded past my nails. Professor Van Leeuwen gently parted the hair—weighted and riddled with sweat—that sat against my neck, whispering: ‘You will feel the head of my needle penetrating the softest patch of skin I could find, and then you will feel nothing at all. Hold still for me, yes?’
My shriek filled the hall faster than the next gust of wind could echo my shrill wail against the frosted windows. I writhed in that chair, rocking the entirety of my weight on my soles, but the needle had already retracted from my neck. When I turned my head to look back at him, his chestnut hair brushed against the bridge of my nose. He was sucking at my neck.
No—he was biting me. Although I couldn’t feel his perverted intrusion, the pressure from his lips gave his fraudulent act of ‘fiction’ away. The sultry slick of blood had quickly trickled down my neck, splitting off in an oval shape as it passed down my throat, before reconvening at my collarbone.
‘Release me! Release me!’ I cried out, straining to pull my neck away from its prison of seduction. Quickly, I looked back towards the devilish figure our shadows had concocted.
There, a most rambunctious idea dawned on me. Head falling back against my shoulders, I whispered a particular phrase in Latin: Monstra quibuscum contendis cave ne imiteris.
And then, Professor Van Leeuwen was halfway across the room, falling up against one of the lecterns in a saunter of frenzy. ‘Come nearer, fiend, and your blood shall be returned!’ he exclaimed, half-grin spread across his lips. He clutched at his lab coat, now sullied by splotches of my blood, as he used the same cloth to wipe at his lips. ‘Look at you… Look at this sanguine creation of radiance!’
Standing from my chair, I grimaced at the dull buzzing against my neck—hiding both arms behind my back. With shaking hands, I clutched the syringe in my palms as I stared down at my professor. ‘Who knew perversion could cloud the mind, donning the visage of academia?’ I spoke dutifully, grasping harder at the medicinal weapon in hiding. ‘I commend your efforts, Professor. But vampires aren’t real.’
And then I stabbed him in his eye, injecting the syringe’s numbing contents against the slick of his cornea—lodging the needle beneath the swirling hazelnut of his pupil. Tears and viscous juices trickled down his cheek. The syringe was now wedged in the annals of his left eyeball; he wrapped his fingers around the thick trinket, struggling to free it from its squelching abyss. Through my own horror, I watched as his cornea became perforated, moulding itself against the stout length of the needle as the latter began to dislodge from his eye. As he reached for me and fell forwards, it was now his turn to scream. But I had already retreated.
He called after me, but I didn’t make out his words. They were slurred, and most certainly crude. Of course, I was never going to bite him back, but strutting out of the lecture hall, I couldn’t help the grin that seduced my lips, and the way my skin now craved the cold air.
I shook my head, chuckling wearily to myself as I drew my hand over my pants to rid my flesh of Leeuwen’s corneal innards. ‘Vampires aren’t real,’ I whispered. ‘Vampires aren’t real.’ I looked to my shadow on the snow-adorned road, and nodded towards my escort.
In a sashay of Phrygian delight, Marianne was sewn into rusted silver;
a withered shroud of halcyon in the chipped glint of the coin, she was
cerise fraternity doused in navy liberty—with only but a dash of stagnant
alabaster in snug equality. And it was said that the greater variant of great-
grandmama cherished this coin.
Why? Oh, I knew not.
But the solitary sizzle of the gramophone reverberated
off the walls of this corner-street pawn shop—making love
to the accordion in the rafters, and the cello down the street.
I never found there to be any weight to coins of silver or gold,
but the former—specifically, the former—not once held a drag
to my hand; always, the sweat was riddled purely with estrangement.
An amalgamated blur of ashen silk now sulked around in my mind,
before her voice, gentle and brash, spilled into the split hems
of my blurred disconcertment:
It was first that I discovered myself in Montmartre.
Beneath the peeling paint of sinking windowsills, and the slender scoliosis
of midnight alleyways, she would paint the greys into slapdash streaks of
vibrance; the soles of her enamelled path met with the meretricious entrail
of anonymity—though, the strings of her harp tingled tenderly to the
unconstrained breeze of Paris. No arrondissement was to be found
within her chords, yet still, she swayed along down the easels
of painters in constant motion and congealed unison, dipping
the dark bristles of her brush against palettes of all shapes
and colours—until the dusk had finally seeped in through
the imperfections of each canvas. Come dawn, she was
a sower. The bearer of such furtive seeds was
nevertheless abstruse to Parisians dancing
around the southern circle, in wonder of
how it was this young woman planted
such flavourful pips on the structural
grounds of this golden epoch. Well, no
one really knew—but she allowed the grandiose
paste of the city to only encompass the aureate barriers
the avenues had built up. Without an end in sight, her roots
flourished in the cracks between paint shops and burlesque cafés—
now, a path of soles to conglomerate further artisans; a blonde
effigy of belle unicité, in an age of embellished
femininity and commonplace gaudiness.
Well, that was what she told me, anyway.
And now, as I remained grounded in the flickering haze
of this pawn shop, the coin suddenly felt a whole lot
heavier in the sultry stick of my palm—and I could
only ask myself, as its new-found weight plummeted
down into those unfamiliar hands,
what more could I have learned?
From the strewn paintings being hung
over the rooftops of starved bellies and spry
men, to the corsets—wherein identified female
pulchritude—incarcerating their seeded abdomens.
What more could have been said, really?
Truthfully, the coin was just that—
an ode to philately.
Yet, why was it that I suddenly felt
longing for this coin? As I watched it slip away,
the only seed that now took root, was regret.
Cranberry Forest
Published in B222 journal (April, 2024).
This free verse, allegorical poem was originally published in the B222 journal 2024 Spring Issue for the theme, "Visions of Home."
In the auditory stagnant of my familiar darkness,
these honeyed fingers
and cranberry lips meticulously germinate
beneath my pine-prickled girdle, and I writhe
longingly in the presence of my own comfort—
my effete veil of golds and sour soot,
​
my rapturously rasping and tranquil
lamina that is home! The blood of
my berries lap richer than a hare’s
blest foot, and they burst into fragmented
purity for no man. My leaves may be redolent
of maple mischief, but they wilt only under
the perverted prodding of the other; for my
bloom flourishes under the sun of my mind,
​
and the moon of my fidelity.
This enclosure of feminine frailty and effeminate ferity
bears only witness to the berry-crested piquing
of the forest; the virtu of elk, the silver snare
of fox, the omniscience of tawny owls—this skin
will know only the delicacy of my care.
So, when I shroud my dicot in the sultry
crepuscule of my own, dianthus countryside
at the first peak of dawn, I need not pry my
eyes to another’s seed—nor reach and beg and
cheat for the soothing of humanistic desire;
instead, my home is in the wondrous
treeline of pendulum-shaped
stars, fruitful bushes of bittersweet
decorum, and the coltish lilts
of critters chittering birdsong.
Only within the fingerprinted smears
of cranberry-creased urgency
and dotted and dabbled diaphaneity,
will this forest bend its branches—
welcoming me home.
& more publications to come...