STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
JESSICA FURTADO
(an erasure from Stephen King’s Carrie)
She walked slowly from her bedroom
to the living room, a hellish body
able to fire without even stirring
a glow of witch’s light. She,
a whirl like a dervish, a heart
dangling in thin air.
Her head almost killed her then;
a stop in the middle of the living room,
her eyes able to feel, actually feel
the power pulling her weakened blood.
Blood, fresh. Blood, the root.
Blood behind her once beautiful face,
the eyes wandering, lines deep
around the oddly weak mouth,
now almost white.
True to a repentant heart,
she shuffled into the kitchen
and arched the gleaming edge of
herself; a coronation.
In her throat: a novelty carnation
of blinding white folly
wrapped up in memory.
(an erasure from Stephen King’s Carrie)
Her mind unrolled
in photographic black and whites
on long, sleepless nights
when she sat with streaking silver
behind her eyes; a glistening
of silent glass that glowed ghostly
against party lights.
She touched the nape of her neck,
a place suspected involved
in the glimmer beneath
a thin membrane of fog; a thaw
in her concentration.
She made herself a silhouette
of paper flowers; shone light
up into shadows
and obscured the visible
with her humming petals.
Blinded by those same lights,
she didn’t believe in acceptable risk,
still humming like a spotlight
forced into the darkness.
(an erasure from Stephen King’s Carrie)
I’m in no position to throw stones, play
martyr. After a pause, I suppose I’ll be
okay. I don’t know what got into me.
I don’t even know my own mind –
gilded with crepe paper,
wine-colored velvet,
a silky white blouse.
I commit to an unwilling masklike quality;
voice light, over-innocent:
accept something, goddammit –
it’s only yourself.
Tell me to color the same golden girl again;
an ungovernable, dangerous thing
broken over her face.
Jessica Furtado is a multi-passionate artist whose visual work has been featured in Grub Street, Muzzle Magazine, Waxwing, & elsewhere, and whose writing has appeared in Qwerty, Rogue Agent, & VIDA Review, among others. Jessica’s poetry was a finalist in Best of the Net (2020), and her debut chapbook A Kiss for the Misbehaved (2023) is available from BatCat Press. To see what she’s up to next, visit Jess at www.jessicafurtado.com
