Issue #1
Work featured in the first issue of Abandon Journal (Summer 2021).
With my camera, I give and receive love.
With great reluctance, I agree to meet a cousin for an outside lunch…
At twenty, the world is yours because you’re beautiful. But never acknowledge your beauty, or it makes you a bitch.
Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.
a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.
Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.
I became obsessed with the idea of altering images to both destroy and create.
the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.
Another image rises to us both: A man hunched before a TV, watching historical documentaries, correcting incorrect facts. Rasputin was not a priest, damn it.
I reached for my invoice, which Dr. George, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled diaper, dropped into my hand.
The young boy goes to bed and kisses his mother goodnight. He goes to bed and closes his eyes and wishes his family good sleep.
Ever since your son brought you here, things have been different. He was crying when he dropped you off. You still don’t know why.
Before the headaches began, I thought myself sturdy: firm in my foundations, set square like a saltbox house.
A reflection on a place that is inherently hostile to humans.
Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.
Sound engineers believe Alan Rickman possessed the perfect male voice. Early acting teachers told him he sounded like he was speaking from the back of a drainpipe.
The collective
failure
of ethical standards
Kate Winslet always reminded me of my mom. Maybe that’s why, even to this day, I get defensive of Rose from Titanic when people call her stupid or shallow…
It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.
my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies