Icing The Bruise

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 

I’m teaching this workshop with another published and accomplished author! We aim to teach what high school and most college students do not learn about writing and publishing their own work. 

Writing Workshop Launch!

We’re excited to announce that Siblíní is hosting a Summer Writing Workshop in Grand Rapids, Michigan over the month of July!

We’re currently accepting applications from high school and college-age students who are interested in learning more about creative writing and publication opportunities. For more information and to apply, please visit our website. 

http://www.siblinijournal.com/#!writing-workshop/o95nw

If able, any reblogging of this opportunity would be immensely appreciated!

I will have a flash fiction piece published in this coming issue of werkloos! 

we’re very excited to announce the launch date of our second issue, in limbo. keep your eyes peeled & your hearts steady, things are about to get lit.

cover image by the talented @ernestvolynec

I LOVE VOIDED SO MUCH! I COULD EASILY GET IT TATTOOED ON MY BODY. YOUR WRITING IS BREATHTAKING

*HEAves* Goodness I’m so honored thanks so much for reading it! I’ve been having a gross time today and it’s mainly my own fault but this just helps so much. You’re breathtaking. 

the sky unclenches a mouth or two —  water trips out of the night  with the same sort of muscle your mother unbuckled to drop the bread knife on the tile. it all goes streaking past the long grey howl of window.

tonight, the house is a sound, the edges where the  rain dies into water. the roof is a flat noise painted awake by a thousand needle-wide of shots in the dark. 

the shrapnel catches in the ears, stays to make a soreness, and replicates a cloud’s shaking by jostling an eardrum. 

no wounds wake up from dreams to populate your skin. the dog is scared like the world’s already been done and undone  at least seven times 

and it has but tonight this house is a sound and the tips of bodies shaking here  only mean that it is being heard and there is an architecture to the thunder. 

                                       - c. essington 

werkloos spring 2016

werkloos mag's second issue, "in limbo"

I've got a piece published in the second issue of werkloos, an online journal. It's a flash fiction piece starting on page 17 called “Red Velvets”. Give it a look if you have a moment and a speck of interest, thanks! 

PS I adore hearing what people think, so feedback is uber welcome. 

(https://issuu.com/werkloosmag/docs/werkloos_spring_2016?e=22031949/36085278)

Those were people. They were targeted for belonging to the LGBTQ community. This was an attack on LGBTQ people, not an attack on “anyone trying to have a night out” or “anyone who’s offended by the shooting”.  

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34.

Stanley Almodovar III, 23.

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20.

Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22.

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36.

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22.

Luis S. Vielma, 22.

Kimberly Morris, 37.

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30.

Darryl Roman Burt II, 29.

Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32.

Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21.

Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25.

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35.

Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50.

Amanda Alvear, 25.

Martin Benitez Torres, 33.

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37.

Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26.

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35.

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25.

Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31.

Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26.

Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old.

Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old.

Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40 years old.

Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old

Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old

Cory James Connell, 21 years old

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37 years old

Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old

Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old

Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25 years old

Jerald Arthur Wright, 31

Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25

Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25

Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24

Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27

Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33

Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49

Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan, 24

Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32

Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28

Frank Hernandez, 27

Paul Terrell Henry, 41

You will not be forgotten. 

              - C. Essington

The Desk Lamp as an MRI

waking up mid-self, she saw the window snarl with a girl in its teeth, skin and hair and eye-contact caked between the panes. it was her size, though grey and smeared, but not her girl.

afraid the light would hear, she kept her mouth half-closed in the shape of a cut, the depth of slick and coming rain. behind the window’s molars, the winter woods, white and black and curdled with the night: undrinkable.

beyond her body, in the shape of her chest, birches rose and fell like breathing. they kept tempo with her lungs but took in more air than she could ever court behind her throat.

the tree transposed behind her left eye hefts a knotted burl into her head, a whorl of bark, a way of stopping, a tumor in the brain, exactly her type of cold.

she diagnoses in the dark, in her mind of snowbank and its thoughts, unmigrated birds, that she wings over her dimmed out cells, those fallen branches, ribbed as though with veins.

she traces lengths of skin. the glass has a purl of flesh dressed up like the early morning and the storm that never came. waking up mid-self, she saw the window snarl it was her size, though grey and smeared, but not her girl.

                                                 - C. Essington

Not quite a question--I wasn't sure how else to reach out. I just read your story from Hika: Limbo and Other Party Games? Its been on my shelf for ages, I reached for it by happy accident. Desperate to focus on anything but finals, maybe. Usually I'd start a new paragraph here. Tends to be my style. I'm running out of words though, so: I guess I just wanted to thank you. I hope someday I can learn to lose as beautifully as you have. In the meantime, I've pasted it in my notebook. Hope thats ok.

Agh I love hearing from people at Kenyon and I’m honored that you put it in your notebook, that’s amazing. I hope you can gain beautifully! Your reading and caring about it is so appreciated so thank you as well! I hope your finals go well and you get to the other side in a hug of summer that lets you relax.