36 Comments
User's avatar
Blackthorn's avatar

came for the fuck scene

stayed for all the other words

Mandy Morris's avatar

This reads like a study in perception and decay, as if you were charting the anatomy of memory itself. The intimacy here feels observed rather than lived, recorded in fragments that almost erase the human behind them. What unsettles me most is how methodical it feels, like the story understands the cost of feeling and chooses dissection instead.

lchristopher's avatar

dissection just ahead, every time.

Eve Zennarrow's avatar

Bauhaus and Peter Murphy! 🤩

lchristopher's avatar

*That's* what you're taking away from all of this? I get four words, three of which are proper nouns? Unbelievable.

Eve Zennarrow's avatar

I know. So rude.

lchristopher's avatar

Be more specific, please. I cannot improve if there is no back and forth, no tete-a-tete. <5

Eve Zennarrow's avatar

I don’t see any room for improvement.

lchristopher's avatar

You see? How can I trust you? :/

Eve Zennarrow's avatar

The only person you need to trust is yourself. No one else (especially not me, haha). I don’t want to analyze your work or point out the “specifics” so you can “get better,” because that would mean changing your writing to fit other people’s preferences. But what makes your writing good is exactly those “imperfections” you want to get rid of — that primal, raw instinct that oozes out of your words. You never know where they’ll take you, and you don’t want to know, because all you want is to keep reading.

That’s how I feel when I read your work, and I don’t want that to change. But hey, that’s just me, and what do I know? I don’t know what’s good, what sells, or what’s popular; I just know that feeling, and I want to follow it until ~ FIN lchristopher part. 🌹

Ray Van Horn, Jr.'s avatar

You damn skippy!

lchristopher's avatar

Always bet on black.

Ray Van Horn, Jr.'s avatar

Murphy's voice stops me in my tracks every time and I've had that archangel's voice in my ears since the 80s.

Chris Marcon's avatar

I've always felt this is the danger of abstract commitment. Or commitment to the surreal. I can't do it. I wonder if it's against my nature. I have though. From time to time. It's always too precarious. Although it lives really in the mind .Plus the heart - which is mutable if guided by the mind. I don't know what else to say. Interesting and familiar too.

lchristopher's avatar

Abstract commitment needs a sense of focus, for certain and sure.

Chris Marcon's avatar

What I mean is there's references that feel abstract because maybe they're personally meaningful, but I'm not sure what they mean. It has a mood of surrender to non linear reality that I can appreciate but have always found disturbing

Carole Roseland's avatar

A lot to think about here.

lchristopher's avatar

Well, *I* know that. I wrote it!

What exactly are you thinking about? A little bit more, as we said in my pedagogical cohort once upon a time. :)

Rea de Miranda's avatar

Jesus!

Rea de Miranda's avatar

All of it!

lchristopher's avatar

HELPS ME NOT A WHIT; NOT AN IOTA. WHAT PARTS JESUS-ED YOU?

Rea de Miranda's avatar

Jesus, Christopher! Don't scream!

Rea de Miranda's avatar

The masturbation scene. You could have been more descriptive! Anyway, I enjoyed it.

lchristopher's avatar

“…more descriptive fuck scenes…harrumph harrumph harrumph…everybody's a critic….fussss….”

Rea de Miranda's avatar

You asked!

Samara's avatar

gah the dialogue; my heart breaks and sludges back together and then breaks again; gorgeous

lchristopher's avatar

break sludge break sludge break sludge break sludge GORGEOUS

Charlotte Balladine's avatar

Kafka on the mirror? Excellent choice 👏

lchristopher's avatar

Read read read. :D

lchristopher's avatar

That's what you took away from this entire work?! Gods…. Xx

Marie Chérie ❤️'s avatar

Damn, son. You’ve done it again, it’s splendid. I have to confess, I read it backwards. The sensuality in this is beyond - jeeezuhs!

lchristopher's avatar

Be. More. Specific [BMS]. Cite examples as to what worked/what didn’t. What was memorable. Etcetera, et. al. Please oh please. [and thank you!] :D

Marie Chérie ❤️'s avatar

Carrying fire is such a beautiful, vivid metaphor. The section that starts with: “Let me know if I hurt you," - and the climactic punctuation/cinematic direction ending the scene with: “…then white.” The “come here” motion, (we know what that means!) It’s written in a loose way, not that it isn’t precise and careful, but right from the start it feels very voice-like, like you’re talking and flowing. You don’t seem to hold back and I think that’s what makes it so endearing.

lchristopher's avatar

I keep hearing that, about not holding back. People like to say raw, which means uncooked, alludes to not being prepared, so I am not 💯 behind it, as this is not just scratched into the side of a board willy-nilly. Could I use the practiced, educate eye of a Big 5 publisher? [1) Depends on the offer, I'm all about bidding wars, people.2) Likely - a talented editor is never a waste.] But it's not exactly raw or unprepared. Come here - which we are we talking about? The female we, maybe. :) I didn't know there was a name for it [but had been doing it for years as part of my personal sexual repertoire, just by trial and error - and a decent sample cohort of lady subjects, one supposes] until only recently.

Thank you for your thoughtful, specific responses, as ever. <5

Marie Chérie ❤️'s avatar

It’s very punk rock. Not to say it is slap-dash at all! The (your) voice flows freely, without self-censorship or self-consciousness. I find your work inspiring…fearless, is how it comes off to me. I suppose I may have meant the “Royal We.” But that whole section is devastatingly sensual. “Come here” used that way, like a veiled wink to the audience. Clever! It’s all gorgeous. Bravo! 👏