A black-robed inquisitor, slight of body, disrobed by his mother often, angry.
A big mouth woman, always open, pronouncing her lack of cock and balls as blessing upon the dirty, dark-haired girls who give birth in the street.
A sentient whip that licks chunks of her off its leather, closes its eyes and rapturous splits her open from ass to nape, slashes harder, harder her sweaty inner thighs.
A stake, a torch, a flame, her silence— the rendered fat, the glistening bone.
The misshapen baby with a port wine stain who toddles off at night on his rickety legs to die curled in the blind ivy that overtook her grave.
I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.
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M. N. Ashley 