As I pulled this old piece out of the backlog, it really put me in a state of remembrance. Back when I initially wrote them in 2016, I published them as a series of poems that began with a rather long, rather complex piece called “Pollyanna.”
The group of poems quickly grew in the back of my mind and became this serial set which I’d fallen in love with. The originals were complex and confusing and as proud of them as I was, no one understood them. As I sat through thinking about a set of poems to bring back for Mean for the Holidays 2020, this crossed my mind multiple times. I reworked them a bit and they are certainly different, I cut Pollyanna, the first of the four as it was wholly too cheerful. See, “pollyanna” means: “an excessively cheerful or optimistic person” and I was fascinated at the time with weird poetry a la E.E Cummings. (I still am, to be frank.) So I penned up this mess that I still hold so dear to my heart. Eventually as I thought of the perspective of the writer, it formed into a much more concrete and linear storyline. Through the jumbled mess, it tells the story of a man who sought something, he craved it so badly that it consumed him.
This desire inside of him brought three sisters, who at the time were named Polly, Chelsea, and Anna. These three sisters promised him his wildest dreams and he fell madly in love with all of them, eventually falling into an abusive relationship with them and in the end, they abandon him. By the final entry, Temple of Flesh, he is at the end of his rope and begging the universe to send the sisters back and he makes a wager with an unknown force that he will sacrifice his mortal body in order to be with them again.
This storyline grew in the back of my head and evolved over time as I was quite tickled with the way I’d set up the original poems. This time around, I just wanted to take a trip down memory lane so I re-worked the three that didn’t confuse everyone and I’ve republished them below.
It goes to show, even in a business reliant on other people’s views and attention, sometimes you will make something that the world doesn’t get and that is absolutely okay.
Love your work regardless.
I’ll worked a short break into my chaotic two weeks today, I’ll be back tomorrow with more fiction, Two stories I’m awfully fond of. A pair of cat burglars enter the home of a renowned painter to find the place totally abandoned, the painter’s goodbye simply a large mural on the wall of the life he’d lived with his wife. They ransack the place and find something there that peels back their nightmares and show them what true fear looks like…
The second, is a story set in the fantasy world I’ve been creating. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I’ll tell you this much. If you like stories about corrupt men getting what is owed to them, I think you may appreciate this one. Keep an eye out today and tomorrow, maybe catch up on a story if you’ve missed one.
Be safe, bring a sword.
-AT
If you enjoyed today’s writing please share it on whatever social media outlet you enjoy the most. While you’re at it, don’t forget to check out The Grimoire of Finality where you can read all of my incoming fiction writing. (It still has that new blog smell.)
I hope something I’ve said made a difference in your life, and please always remember…
Life is not meant to be awful.
Catch me on social media if you’d like to get more info/updates on what is soon to come!
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-AT
Modern Alchemy 