Shade Literary Arts

"Nothing canyon in me. I keep time in subway stops, scoff at   the aeons between flesh & its consequence of plastic.   Everything I eat runs through me as pity.

It's time for another year of The Sealey Challenge , a reading challenge created by Nicole Sealey in 2017. This following list offers 31...

"This is how I imagine you up there: — finally crowned in ecstatic gold tinsel, perched on a copper   velvet throne. Little lounging angel, the size of a flower vase, even the big beasts purr   in harmony."

"When the whole world comes around to see what she’s seen all along When the universe arches its back and corrects itself When each breath is only for her to control She wins, alive again in a world that barely noticed  the victories but wouldn’t be the same if ever she had lost"

"i lie with a liar’s longing on my hips asking myself if i was too hard on a foolish boy or simply too giving in my desperate theater, i’ve always mirrored the girls on stage who command applause with desire"

"It is also a tree of mourning: Apollo changed a handsome boy into a cypress after he accidentally kills his stag   At dusk, the deer parade the lawn   Traces of sweet perfume in late fall   At the Temple of Love, sculpted snarling men spit into a fountain"

" i remember my name & listen to its sound collapse in midair: spine snapped in half: small bird escaping that cavernous nothing inside me"

“I needed a body to begin with a body to pull apart weep over contend With a body I would need to finally make my own”

“How do you break in to your own body? Find a mirror that hasn’t killed you. Dreams don’t come quietly. Be careful with the ones you pick clean."

“I am warned against bathing in this darkness but instead I escort my past outside to witness that which purges us. I am asked to let go