Reading Where Decay Sleeps Part 3

Backed on Kickstarter disclosure!

Read my thoughts on previous parts of the book.

Warnings for this section:

Shadow: metal illness, paranoia.
The Faceless Man: alcohol, medication use, mental illness, paranoia, schizophrenia, stalking.
Hikikomori: anxiety, mental illness (general).
Beatrice and Bluebeard: abuse, alcohol, blood, death, manipulation, misogyny, violence.
Decay, the Stalker: anxiety, bullying, depression, medication use, mental illness (general), self-harm, stalking, suicidal thoughts.
Covid-19: Delirium: none listed, but presumably the pandemic.
The Night Fisherman: abuse, animal abuse, death, gore, hanging, torture, violence.

Beware of spoilers, all who enter here!

propaganda princess

they reveled in stitching her back together again. over and over again. so that she’d shatter and scream her song of anguish as they tore her apart as if they’d captured her yesterday.

so much more fulfilling than life as a prince.

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Reading Where Decay Sleeps Part 2

Read my thoughts on Part 1: Pallor Mortis (Birth).

Warnings for this section: Alcohol (The Thing on the Subway; Zombies@the Arches), Hanging (The Thing on the Subway), Stalking (The Thing on the Subway), Gore (Zombies@the Arches; Monster Tinder), Death (Computer Love); Sex (Computer Love).

Beware of spoilers, all who enter here!

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Reading Where Decay Sleeps Part 1

Many apologies to Anna Cheung, the author who worked very hard on these poems. I’m not a poet and I know it. I’m writing these thoughts as I go so I can process what I’m reading better. Hopefully, others will appreciate them too.

If anybody out there struggles with poetry, you’re not alone. There’s help out there for us. Somewhere. I’ll google it later!

What I’m reading today is the Pallor Mortis (Birth) section of Anna Cheung’s debut anthology of Chinese Gothic horror poetry, Where Decay Sleeps, published by Haunt Publishing. I got this book as part of a kickstarter reward, just so everybody’s clear. While I could write a separate essay based on how the sunk-cost fallacy might combine with this fool and my money are soon parted to form a tornado of “I’m loving this book uncritically, I don’t give a damn!” James Stephanie Sterling has a whole video on the topic you can watch instead. Besides, I’m a hype man, not a salesman.

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Skitter

horses running through a forest, filtered in blue.

We kiss after skittering around each other for years.

Struck by lightning, our lips scatter.

Crossed stars won’t keep us apart.

We steel ourselves to become magnets,

Pulling ourselves steadily back together.

Our lips stitch back together.

We stay.

Stubborn stones rooted in the ground.

Stealing sweet nothings no one wants us to exchange.

But we both know the exchange rate by heart, mind, and soul.