tir journal

“The absence of the witch does not invalidate the spell.”
-Emily Dickinson

Words create life from the inside out and, like spells, keep working after they’ve been said. This is a simple idea, that our words and thoughts are real, that they do more than point us in the right direction. They are the paths we’re already walking on. Poetry doesn’t just inspire new ideas for the world, but it is the new world being built before and by our eyes.

In the half sleep I try to remember the words I want people to see

Reading Maple Shade, looking through Kayla’s eyes, is like putting on a pair of sunglasses with a beat. In these crimson-tinted scenes, what you see is what you get. Her words sit in their sentences like chairs in a room. She is always leaving something behind in a good way.

It is like what I am trying to say/ is coating the archway to this room/ coating the ceiling and the tops of the walls/what I want to say to you/ coats that archway.

In Poetics of Relation, Edouard Glissant writes, “Thinking thought usually amounts to withdrawing into a dimensionless place in which the idea of thought alone persists. But thought in reality spaces itself out into the world. It informs the imaginary of peoples, their varied poetics, which it then transforms, meaning, in them its risk becomes realized.”

Thought in reality. Kayla’s thoughts in reality go:

My shin hurts, when I think about it cracking.

That thought “spaces itself out into the world” could mean it moves to fill the space where it isn’t. Thought turns into poetry and all communication, spoken, written or otherwise. Its newness can fill the space of our world at the speed of our imaginations, making us so much bigger than we appear to ourselves.

She really let herself grow.

We are living in a moment (we are always living in this moment, but people realize it now) where we need to build new structures. Some say that you can’t topple an existing order without knowing what comes next, some say we don’t have a plan. But I think we have idea. We know from writing that words are reality, and as long as we use them constructively, we are more than prepared. The revolution builds itself slowly, beginning with our thoughts.

Every idea puts us in a better position to act out our new realities. New fashion is more than trendsetting—it’s contributing to the next movement, like throwing out a breadcrumb trail before you. Each active decision makes a little particle of air vibrate.

can I buzz your reality/ from all the way over here/ near the sidewalk?

I’d say Kayla is building utopias with this energy, but it’s more like she’s dragging her fantasies around in real time and space.

A zen garden with holes

A smelly massage

Not utopia, but reminiscent. Too good to be true? She is describing fantasies in real life, something like picking up the leftovers from utopian dreams and patching up our world with them.

So much can go wrong
I don’t want to touch anything
I will never pick my nose again
I can still say
I don’t want to die
It is still dark in my mind
It is still alive
I am still scared of midnight

the witching hour revival
an eclipse, if you will
did you know
“all eclipses are joined together
like pearls on a necklace?”

Fantasy is a part of real life. The words “all eclipses are joined together like pearls on a necklace” are a part of the reality, the part that exists inside your mind and on the page. Here, you can have baby boy as a reward for getting an IUD.

What do you want?
I wanted a reward
The harsh light
A baby boy?
A quiet mind
A complicated Shavassana

A complicated Shavassanah. Its like the zen garden with holes and the smelly massage. One foot in nirvana and the other on land.

Kayla writes like she’s overpacking, but isn’t worried about it. Because every little fantasy helps.

MARY CLARK is a writer living in Los Angeles. She graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in Comparative Literature in 2015. She is interested in writing that addresses specific audiences and is currently working on pieces for her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She believes her friends are her biggest influences and enjoys formalizing that inspiration through writing.
Amethystdriver.blogspot.com

KAYLA EPHROS is an artist living in Los Angeles. She works in a variety of mediums, using poetry as a guide for balance and layering. Her work deals with notions of femininity, fantasy as reality, ritual, and paranoia. Her New Jersey roots play an important role.
kaylaephros.com