Author: Erica Phelps
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running out of words to write
Running out of words to write. Running from the stage, from the spotlight. I know the masquerade that writers do. I’ve torn it off and bared my soul, scarred and misshapen as it is, then I’ve smiled when people clapped like writers do, seen through the haze of a multitude of gazes. What is intimacy?…
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flowers on my windowsill
The sun set, my skin burnt red, the beetles had gone from my brain. A porch light turns on, the air fills blue and lime and my skin burns so warm I feel dizzy. I’m forgetting what it felt like that time when I fell, but I remember that the bottom was liquid that surged…
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The Love I was Given
When I was fifteen, I fell in love with a girl.
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To Speak
“For someone so quiet, you seem to have a lot to say.”
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Under The Snow
I felt it next to me.
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Could you tell that I am a body already buried?
By Erica PhelpsEditor: Alloe Mak Here I find my mindstolen from sleep and kept inmurmuring voicesand rooms full of thingsthat sink and gostill. In darkness and almost alone,I am thinking of the absence of echoes.Of things that go and come backwhen here we stay for infinity—things do not come back. I see you but not…
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Chasing Butterflies
Writer: Erica Phelps Editors: Amy Li and Alloe Mak I sit here with you on the grass, making bouquets with garden flowers, when you begin to tell me a story. “That time in June when we went to the lake, do you remember? We swam in the crisp, cool water, and you screamed when I…
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Sit here for a while
Erica PhelpsEditor: Alloe Mak Have you ever found yourselfnestled between horizon and sun,thinking: I could sit here for a while?Before I am enveloped in stars,stamped, and sent away,I could sit here for a while.Don’t send me away. Are you scared?Truth is if I thought for a secondthat this soul was mine,I’d fear not death butthe…
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The Half-Human:
I have this dream. I am lying on the floor of my bedroom, my mind smooth, clear and unsolid. In this dream, I have no name, no purpose and no presence. I am simply a body, existing on my bedroom floor. The first thing I know in my existence is that my room is slightly…
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Sew my mouth shut
Someone keeps sewing my mouth shutwith stitches that match my skin. My nights are haunted by dreamswhere a slippery arm pulls out my heartfrom my throat.In the clean palm of your handit is you who holds my heart—an eyeglass in one hand andneedle and threat in the other.Asking:Why do you cry?My mouth is sewn shut.Why…
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Winter Waves
Oh, how I love the soundthat waves make in winter.A deep breath—a quiet roar,frozen in the depths of emotion. Blue with veins of black,and a heart that isblacker still.The beat of the sea is a songfull of sorrow from the soul of the Earth. In summer,the sea is angry.Vicious,it storms and it sinks,swallowing pills of…
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The Gravers
The Gravers arrived every November. When the vibrant mosaics of October turned into stale and scattered browns; when the sweet-smelling October air turned into a cold so sharp it stung as you inhaled; when sleepy sunsets of October turned into darkness so abrupt that you found yourself forgetting how to long for the sun; when…
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Malevolence
I cannot shake the feeling that someone is watching me. It is half past midnight, and my window is open, letting a chilled waft of air, saturated with the nostalgic scent of fall, gradually fill my room. I am lying under the heavy blankets of my bed, growing increasingly aware of how hot my body…
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a beautiful plea
This beautiful plea knows the bounds of this page. The blood that you gave me that flows Through my suffocated skin, Is like waterfalls through a poisoned pool. Black and blue and dead all over. I am writing and painting pictures and poems for you to see. Come and take a walk through my pathetic…
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Autumn Rain
In my room I wait, hopeful eyes turned up to a hopeless abyss. I sit at my window, as silent and still as the glass pane through which I gaze. My hands, busy on my lap, play a silly little game of twisting and pulling—a game that shall never be won or lost, so long…
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Ophelia
Ophelia of the lonely lake, can you hear me as I do you? You are in my mind, and you are miming my death Again. And Again. And Again. Ophelia of the mourning mountains, night before last, I dreamt I was a star shining and shooting with infinity above. But when I woke, I saw…
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The Undead
I knew I was undead when I looked in the mirror and saw that my skin was bare. When I ran my fingers down my smooth, soft cheek, and felt no cuts, no wrinkles, no blemishes. Not a flaw to be felt, not a sign to be seen that life had made its mark. I…