I remember a photo I saw of a two-hundred-year-old
cherry blossom tree.
I imagine the events it must have borne witness to:
births, deaths, tsunamis, the rise and fall of empires,
but still its branches spread with pink and red blooms.
I wake up some mornings, an elegy for self
on my cracked lips, gazing upon my scars
and wondering why I’m still here.
But to some, I’m still blooming and they don’t see
the fractures I think define me.
Perhaps I still have some life in me.
If a tree can withstand two-hundred years
of storm and sun,
I, too, can live and love a little longer.
Isabelle Palerma
A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part II)
You take a deep breath, not sure whether to believe this man named Micah, but what choice do you have? You cannot stay locked in his bathroom with a pair of nail clippers forever.
As you trudge out of the bathroom, he offers you a weak smile – not the generous grin from before. “You’re not a mutant,” he says, as if that’s going to make you feel any better.
“Gee, thanks,” you mutter.
He shrugs. “I’m trying here.”
That’s when it hits you with all of the strength of a bullet train. Yes, you might have slept with Micah last night, but you’re in a relationship.
Your girlfriend won’t be mad. She probably is sleeping with someone else too, but she will be jealous you slept on silk sheets and the guy you slept with has a bidet, which probably cost more than your rent and monthly utility bill.
Anyway. You should probably hurry back to Shiloh, but right now, you have more questions than answers, and he’s out of bed and making eggs that smell to die for.
Finally, you say, “What do you mean you know all about the feathers on my finger?”
He turns to you, flipping the omelet. “I mean,” he says in a pedantic tone, “I know what they are. Why they showed up.”
You want to find out more. Your mouth is watering. You’re hungry. You’re not sure if you’re hungry for details or for the cheddar-and-ham omelet he is preparing like a three-star Michelin star chef. But before he can elaborate, your phone begins to blare your familiar melody, “A Seraphic Metamorphosis”, by your favorite band, Compensated Endeavor. He grins and grabs you by the waist, grinding against you.
You smile, the tiny wings on your pinkie fluttering. Sheepishly, you jam your hand against the skin of your hip, wishing you were dressed. “It’s my ring tone,” you mumble, “I better answer that.”
Shiloh’s voice floods your ear, breathless and frightened and small, “Hey,” she says, “it’s your mom. Something with her heart.”
You listen to her breathing and can hear your own heart whooshing in your ear. This is not good. You look down at your hand – the flittering feathers have vanished.
Like they were never there at all.
… to be continued.
Isabelle Palerma
This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.
The (Not So) Gentle Parts: a Poem
You talk of your soul ossifying –
the soft parts hardening,
but I’m preoccupied with
pulling out the hems of reality,
ripping out the stitching.
I refuse to yield.
To be soft for too many years
means
to decay,
to become moss underfoot
& I refuse to become trampled.
They told me that the way you identify
lace is by its holes,
and I know now,
I never want to be recognized
by what I lack.
Instead,
I hunt for the parts of myself
that used to be consumed by the patriarchy
and men with hunger for eyes.
(The pieces of myself
that were consumed
because I swallowed my teeth
to make myself more digestible.)
But I don’t need a flashlight
or a search party —
I can be discovered quite easily.
I’m not the girl who I thought I was.
I’m the woman who refuses to surrender.
I forget my fight sometimes
(like the candle who neglected her flame),
but I am prepared for war.
I am no longer paraffin wax that pours down smoothly-
only to harden on your lungs.
I’m not the gentle pieces you stepped upon –
the dandelion you crushed & never asked
forgiveness of.
Isabelle Palerma
Losing Annie: a Short, Short Fiction
A Stand-Alone Piece
Based on true-ish events.
The long days of summer are nearly behind us. I watch as the sun breaks through the cracks in tree branches high above Annie’s window, forming a pattern like lace, on the sidewalk. I look up into her window, wanting to throw a small rock at it.
Just enough of that quiet rat-a-tat-tat of the stone against glass to get her attention. But more than that, I want to be inside her home. In her basement where we had set up the vintage record player we brought for only ten bucks at a garage sale. Annie always bought the cool records too. Simon & Garfunkel. Credence Clearwater Revival. The Who.
Stuff I’d never heard of, but when I told her that, she had laughed and said it was all her daddy listened to.
I want to be in the basement, listening to the old records and drinking honey lemonade like we did last summer. But Annie’s window looks dusty. The whole place has been abandoned for about three months now.
I still remember it – the souring of my stomach when the operator told me that the Klein’s number had been disconnected.
I had asked my mom what it meant, but all she told me was that Annie and I wouldn’t be going roller skating this summer.
And I haven’t seen her since.
One day, she writes me a note. It has a return address of Wyoming. She says she’s sorry, but when her daddy has to move, she has to go with him. It’s what it’s like being the daughter of a man who works for the telephone company. I tell my mama this, and she laughs, but her laugh sounds sad. She says, “Annie sounds wise beyond her years.”
So, I write Annie back. I tell her it’s okay, just that summer is almost over, and that I miss her, and that I miss the beat-up, old record player we bought. But a few days later, the letter comes back to me.
“Return to sender” is stamped on the outside.
“She must have moved again,” my mama says, “maybe one day, you’ll find Annie.”
Isabelle Palerma
This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.
A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part I)
You wake up in a strange city, in a bed that doesn’t belong to you, and you feel a strange tickling in your pinkie. You glance down – a small pair of turquoise and brown feathers are fluttering on your nail bed. “What the…” you begin to murmur, but before you can complete the sentiment, a stranger slides back into the bed beside you.
“Oh,” he says with a big smile, “you’re awake.”
You writhe around, trying to find a way to keep the stranger from discovering what you just found out for yourself – that over night, you’ve developed a tiny pair of wings.
You try to smile back, but the stranger recognizes how uncomfortable you are. “Would you like to freshen up?” he offers.
How magnanimous, you think. Maybe he has some nail clippers in the bathroom and I can just snip the wings off. You nod and hide your hands behind your back as he gestures toward the bathroom. You nod and scurry to the bathroom, slamming the door behind you. “Sorry,” you call over your shoulder.
“No worries,” he replies. At least he seems like an easygoing enough guy. You find a hairbrush and untangle your snarled hair. You make do without a toothbrush. Then, the most important reason – you start hunting for a pair of nail clippers.
You find them and easily snip the wings off, but even in the yellow light of the bathroom, they are oddly beautiful – the turquoise is the color of the ocean and the brown is even lovely, the shade of a wren’s feathers.
Even weirder is the pain that sears through you when you cut them off. Like a scorching, sizzling sort of pain. You bite back a gasp.
Then, the unthinkable happens.
The two tiny feathers that had been beating against each other grow back.
“You okay in there?” the stranger calls.
You are speechless but finally swallow your fears and call back, “Yep. I’m fine.”
You think about it. This is a stranger. You probably slept together. You don’t really remember much. The night is a little hazy. You are naked. You did wake up in his bed. He was naked when he came back to bed.
“Did we have sex?” you ask because why the hell not? That’s safer than asking him if he knows anything about pinkie feathers.
“I was that memorable, huh?” he replies, his voice teasing. “We sure did. Next thing you know, you’ll tell me you don’t remember my name.”
Shit. It’s like someone wiped your memory clean.
What is his name?
“You’re going to hate me,” you respond, your voice decidedly not teasing.
“I’m Micah,” he tells you, “and you can come out of the bathroom now. I know all about the feathers on your finger.”
…to be continued.
Isabelle Palerma
This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.
Isabelle Palerma 