The Infinite Starr

gothic romance

  • No Forwarding Address

    The mail kept coming. Suddenly, you stop calling them by the name you had for them, and you start calling them by their government name. Then you drop the first name. Eventually, the only thing that remains is the last name you see in the mailbox. It happens without ceremony. The envelopes arrive between electric…

    Read more →

  • Ghost Story

    Eventually, loving them begins to require something crueler than staying. You let them go. You stand at a distance and watch them dance with their devil, recognizing the steps because you watched them practice for years. There is a hollowness behind their eyes that you once tried desperately to reach. You stop trying. Not because…

    Read more →

  • By Definition

    They say doing the same thing over and over again is crazy. Some of us call it consistency. Consistency looks crazy to people who have none. The rest of us keep on keeping on because it is what it is. There was a shop at the end of a narrow city street that only appeared…

    Read more →

  • That Backpack

    The longer you travel, the less you carry. That is what the old travelers say, usually while standing somewhere they have no intention of staying. They learn to count necessities differently. A coat becomes more important than a second pair of shoes. Water outranks perfume. Books become too heavy unless they are worth the weight.…

    Read more →

  • Consequences of Division

    The demons had been unusually restless since the veil began to thin. They had always lived among us, although in earlier centuries they possessed the dignity to remain mostly invisible. They preferred cathedrals after midnight, the bedsides of dying kings, the corners of rooms where grief had been left unattended for too many years. They…

    Read more →

  • The People v. Death

    Death arrived eleven minutes late to his own trial. The courtroom had been full since dawn. Every pew behind the railing was occupied by someone carrying evidence. A widow held a wedding ring between her thumb and forefinger. A father had brought a baseball glove that had not been used in nine years. An old…

    Read more →

  • When the Soul Became Two Flames

    The first thing she noticed was that animals stopped being afraid of her. It happened gradually. A blackbird remained on the cemetery wall when she passed beneath it. A fox stood at the edge of the woods one morning and watched her without running. Even the old neighborhood cat, a scarred thing that trusted nobody…

    Read more →

  • The Lovers Beneath the Veil

    You have dreamed of him before. You never remember his face. Only the sensation of being followed through places you have never visited while awake. Sometimes there is snow beneath your bare feet. Sometimes black water. Once, an orchard appeared beneath a violet moon, every tree heavy with fruit you somehow knew you were forbidden…

    Read more →

  • The Confessional Had No Collar

    He was the confessional without the collar. No stained glass. No wooden booth. No priest waiting patiently on the other side of a little brass screen. Just a telephone that was almost always on speaker and a man who could never keep his sins inside his own mouth. Behind closed doors, they poured out. The…

    Read more →

  • The Beginning of the end.

    New Orleans is different before dawn. The drunks have mostly surrendered. The tourists are asleep beneath hotel sheets they will complain about at checkout. And the dead finally have the streets to themselves. I had one thing left to do before I left. The cemetery gates were still locked when I arrived, which felt appropriate.…

    Read more →

Instagram / TikTok / X

Designed with WordPress