Flush // April 13 2023

god is the space where God used to be

Who am I meant to be angry at now?

dostoyevsky // nicola yoon // ada limón // john steinbeck // avainblue // sylvia plath

Alessandro Biffignandi

We have always been here

Acrylic paintings by Jason Limon on Instagram

This is sick af

Some charcoal drawings

Gently I tuck another idea to rest in the mausoleum - an archived document, dead.

Melodramatic, I loudly intone that I had the best intentions to finish the work, and yet…

Damnit, it happened again.

A man in the hospital died today

I'm in the room next door when it happens. No alarms sound his death. No one is there to scream or cry.

Just two nurses, gathered round his bed like doves in blue scrubs. I hope they thought to hold his hand.

His mottled arms are folded neatly across his chest when I arrive. I study his body, instinctively looking for the rise and fall of breath. He is, of course, perfectly still. The sensors have all been removed, he is covered in a feather-light sheet. His skin, nearly translucent, glows in the sunlight.

The older of the two nurses must see my wide eyes; she beckons me and shows me what to do.

This was a good death, she tells me.

I am not convinced. She continues as she hands me a roll of gauze.

He was comfortable.

She shows me how to moisten his eyes to protect them for donation. I touch his eyelid gingerly. The cold makes me flinch. I remind myself that bodies do that when they die.

He was clean.

I place the gauze on his lids, covering his priceless eyes. I remind myself that I cannot hurt him. I still handle him as if his skin were eggshell.

The sterile water runs out from the gauze and streams down his cheek.

He wasn't alone.

What's a character you were super into when you were like 12?

Oh my god, such a good question. 12 year old my was a fucking VORACIOUS reader, but the first thing that comes to mind is Artemis Fowl. Fam, I thought he was the absolute shit