April Littrell
Three Stories
Dredged up this txt file from one of my λ folders1 in iA Writer. I have a trove of similar writings scattered about, and, as with this one, I can’t be 100% certain of the actual creation date. The file says it was created on July 5, 2017 at 11:39, but the words themselves could have very well been drafted in something like Apple Notes and copied into iA Writer at a later date. Because this is the only timestamp I have to go off of, I’m backdating this post accordingly. This same logic will apply to other posts—if I can find a plausible creation date, I’ll go with it. Otherwise I may catapult old musings into the present, likely referencing the fact that they have fermented a bit.
As you can see, I’m currently uploading2 this on September 14, 2023… a full 6 years later. It’s an effort to pad out my site archive with the chronological evolution of my writing style and perception of the world. I’m being indiscriminate with what makes it onto the site. The main criterion is that posts should be interesting enough should someone land on them—said reader should be curious enough to begin to read, even if they give up. It’s easy to slip into the abyss of these ligature-less letters.
The Romance
The romance began when twenty one pirates licked the moon and it rained silver spoons onto the desert floor. A monkey howled with a twinkle in his eye as he sat in the corner, wheat on rye. Buttered barley and crispy oats. The man with the purple hat lay sideways among the stars and quietly wondered where his thirteen daughters were. Perhaps a piglet yawns or writes an email in the corridor but who would know save his feminine friend with lipstick as red as tomato soup. Soup thick with tongues chafing and liquids splayed across a tense surface eaten by the clasped flesh of a rotten peel. The backseat kind where you keep your millions and a crawfish looking for a thrill. His mind spilled into your palms and the boy wept. Why is it so that a room with thirty colors could be so bland. As bland as the rumbling of a pebble in a firm breast. Take half off of that shirt which hath been forgiven the stains of romance—for what is romance but the careful footwork of a severed bicycle pedal. Twice came the oceans and they choose to forever scrape a charcoal dream across the sky. Always wonder, always wonder why.
More Time
If there were more time in the day I would bury a fur coat and mark it with a curly shaped rope which once ceased the breath of a small spade. Many moons have called and swords dance in between serrated teeth. Sometimes when bags choose to open and out whips the scent of a caramel whisper, she will clench dolphins and ride her golden letter into the black of night. The sparrow clips its wings and drowns in a cloud of desperation within a world of blue and sun shines upon those who eat themselves from broken piers. Take hers over your shoulder with a grain of saffron and sparkling bronze. She listens… she listens.
He Was Born
He was born on a rainy rock. Please, please he bellowed. A lip rubs his cheek and a binocular hangs off a distant stick. Shut the door and batten the rubber touch of appetite. Thick grows the mind with ivy spiraling into nothing. Nothing. For every waking child pumps into a drum of viscosity with the sound of a trodden rodent. If so many are meant to love, why does the sky have but two? Lift into the bony breath of a siren the word of your mother and spin a top laden time and time again with the kindred twigs of fermented memories. Drive into the canal and remove from within a writhing remembrance of things to come. A kitten screams. And when it reaches the surface, a man tastes his knuckle and hears the salt. A shaven salt.
When sorting folders alphabetically, folders that start with Greek symbols appear after the Latin alphabet. I use lambda because of Half-Life. My λ folders always contain information that doesn’t otherwise fit into its respective hierarchy, e.g. archived files or files which haven’t yet been sorted.↩︎
Note I say uploading when the screen capture states that I have modified the file. I confess, I did edit a single word out for fear of possible assumptions. I will say no further, except that the edited word is in addition to the updated post title, which you can see is Three Stories in contradiction with the screen capture’s title Three Poems. Though this post is tagged and categorized as a poetry, I felt stories was more apt. You approach them differently, stories versus poems. Like if you order soup and are served a bowl of cereal. Or sip a glass of vodka, expecting it to be water. Or something like that.↩︎