Flash the Court

Tag: Speculative Creative Nonfiction

  • “Re-Womb” by Rebecca Evans

    “Re-Womb” by Rebecca Evans

    “Re-Womb” by Rebecca Evans is a speculative creative nonfiction essay that redefines the form. Evans uses the technique of “perhapsing” to imagine a new integrative reality as the narrator becomes sensuously attuned within the wider world, “in celebration of / another / and another / and another.” Marvelously lyrical and metaphorical, “Re-Womb” is a study of language, a study of self.  —Court Harler

    If I rebirthed, I’d return as an orca and dance with my pod—us three—female, calf, escort. Perhaps I’d be the female, stifle humankind in the Strait of Gibraltar, remind man of his place, his fragile femur and filament and, remind him—every. single. man.—I am royalty.

    Or perhaps I re-womb, tunnel myself within and without. The darkness but a blanket—a blanket fort, a blanket of snow, an electric blanket. Me, cocooned and healing. Here, I snip stitches and strip screws. Here, I tenderly pull thread and metal. Here, my surgical reparation of heart and bone. I allow my body to finish her job. Oh! how she knows. Knows more than me.

    I hope when I die, I leave an imprint, not just an impression. Not the pressure-outline left on my bed or embossed into another. No. A signature of my stories, my songs, impressed beneath the skin of those who damaged me most. My words flaming through that cage, the place they held me

    hostage.

    Snow melts.

    A blanket returns

    to fiber.

    One flicker extinguishes darkness. Think, Small candle that someone,

    somewhere lights in memory of

    or in hope for

    or in celebration of

    another

    and another

    and another.

    Maybe I do not return as a female orca. Even while they sleep, they guard. Vertical “resting” buoyanced by water.

    I wonder, Does a mother ever rest?

    Perhaps I un-womb, return as words—a language still unspoken. One that you feel before you note the shape of it leaving your lips. Before your tongue presses to the back of your teeth.  Like song. Like whale humming. Like vibration massaging your weary bones.

    Think, Cello against your chest.

    Think, Babe turning in your womb-waters.

    Think, Hummingbird in your heart.

    You no longer feel the boundary—where you end and all else begins. Oh! how we have forgotten. We are instruments and whales and wings. Me, as language, will swoop through hearts like storm and ocean.

    Think, Dervish.

    Think. Cliff diving.

    Think…

    anything that sets you free,

    brings you warmth,

    reminds you

    that you, too, are all of these.

    REBECCA EVANS writes the difficult, the heart-full, the guidebooks for survivors. Her work includes a full-length poetry collection, Tangled by Blood; a collection-length poem, Safe Handling; and a forthcoming collection of flash essays, AfterBurn. Her work offers social commentary on surviving sexual assault by combining visual art, literary craft, and empowerment coaching.

    Featured image by Sixteen Miles Out, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Mrs. Luzajic as Hebe” by Lorette C. Luzajic

    “Mrs. Luzajic as Hebe” by Lorette C. Luzajic

    “Mrs. Luzajic as Hebe” by Lorette C. Luzajic is part poem, part essay; part dream, part terror. Hebe is the ancient goddess of the prime of life, but “when you’re dying, nostalgia kicks in the way desire once did.” The narrator journeys near and far, searching for chardonnay and ceviche, but also seemingly never leaves her own kitchen. There, she brews espresso and spins stories. There, eventually, she lives and lives and lives, thank the goddesses.  —Court Harler

    a love poem for Brent Terry

    Under the knife, under the needle. I can’t even say I was determined to survive. The reaper had followed me for so long, in different disguises, with an impressive array of tactics, I was not certain I’d outwit him again. I hoped for the best and planned for the worst. I took my medicine. 

    When you’re dying, nostalgia kicks in the way desire once did. Hard and hungry. Tantalizing flickers of foolish yesterdays: I had my middle finger to the world and an arsenal of dreams left to shatter. Then, there, driving through Dakota. The stars from the back of the pickup. Patti Smith growling her poems from the front cab radio. A bottomless bottle of bourbon. Now, here, you are a deer caught in the headlights. You’ve been caught with your pants down. Life has you by the balls.

    When you are careening along that winding hairpin cliff, the Pacific Coast Highway, everything you know unravels. You are unbecoming. You let go of unfinished things. The details whir past in a slurry, intangible. I took that highway again, later, further south, in Mexico, on a bus, splattering iguanas. Reeling into the turquoise forever with a gone friend, who was, then, there, mirror Ray-Bans and eggshell linen trousers. I prayed my heart out for the driver. And we made it to the sea.

    There was more: the portent glow of a bright moon and the sound of silence in the southern swamps. The bats in Barcelona. Their swooping, and the swallows.

    What you find here in the valley of the shadow of death is how every moment matters. The beauty, of course, yes, sublime: Spanish guitar; pastels de nata; head-back laughing; good chardonnay that tastes of cigars. But also: every single fucking hurt and hell is a magic spell.

    And then, sometimes, you come back. You find yourself in the kitchen, measuring out Lively Up espresso beans, getting ready for work. You find yourself at a table with good friends, slurping ceviche and lime. And you realize you really don’t have a clue how you got there. But here we are.

    I grew so much closer to God. And so much further away from knowing what that even means.

    There were times when I didn’t know who I was. And then I did. And sometimes, I felt like I had always known. Sometimes when I was flickering in the liminal, I saw the ghost light: beacons in the dark loam that slowly swallowed me, the lighthouse that was a friend.

    I had spells where I thought about strange things. Like, what if, you already were? What if your whole life was really the story of your unbecoming?

    LORETTE C. LUZAJIC reads, writes, and teaches flash. She is the founder of The Ekphrastic Review and The Mackinaw: a journal of prose poetry.

    Featured image by The New York Public Library, courtesy of Unsplash.