Essays & prose

Prose

On making, on light, on the texture of a day.

Hilma af Klint's Curse

She sealed her paintings away for twenty years after death. Because the world was not ready. I know this curse. I have lived inside it.

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In the Waiting Room (after Anaïs Nin)

I have lingered too long in the waiting room, this shadowed chamber where the air hangs heavy...

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In the Waiting Room (after Sylvia Plath)

I am sealed in the waiting room, this glass jar of fogged breath...

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In the Waiting Room (after Rumi)

In the waiting room's fog, three years I dwell, a daffodil hushed, in silence's spell...

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For Alva Ljuva Dagny

The real deer and the fairy housemaid — one soul, two forms. Where presence is the highest gift. Where blinking slowly is its own sacred language.

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Under His Eye: A Blooming Defiance

Under his eye? No. We bloom. Amen blooms eternal.

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For the Singing Sparrows

Sparrows, once they truly sing, cannot be made silent again.

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The Garden Where Love Never Dies

From The Gospel of Planet Hope, Book III. You dig a hole in the ground and you place something living inside it. Then you cover it up. Then you wait. This is faith. This is also gardening.

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And the Rest Is Future

God wins. Always. God wins. And the rest is future.

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Bloom Anyway: A Memoir — Memory Bank

She and I against the world — that was always the shape of it.

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Ash Wednesday: On Dust, Death, and Daffodils

Ash Wednesday is not a warning to the living. It is a resurrection announcement to the already dead.

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The Gospel According to Saga

Blessed are the daffodils in February, for they shall bloom anyway.

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I Serve Cats and Demons

I serve what came when no one came. I serve what stayed when all else fled.

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The Constellation of Tragic Women

We are warnings. We are mirrors. We are still visible. We are still burning.

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Let Them Eat Cake

I am not asking for permission to bloom. I am blooming anyway.

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Satan Is an Orphan

We orphans learn to bloom forth even in the winter's freeze — we are the daffodils in snow.

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Saga Bernadotte of St. Petersburg

I am royal in exile — and that is still royal, after all.

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Kim Kärnfalk

From Bloom Anyway: A Memoir. We chose each other in the sandbox. This is the truest thing I can say about how friendships begin.

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The Anointed Orphan's Blooming Bible

I open my own Bible today. I am not waiting anymore.

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Lasse

From Bloom Anyway: A Memoir. He was sixteen when he died, and before that he was the first boy I kissed.

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