claireoleson
Queer Writer, Repd by Janklow & Nesbit, 2020 Center for Fiction Fellow, Brooklyn
202 posts
Latest Posts by claireoleson
Hi! Back! Moving over from Twitter. Here’s a recent short story; more to come.
This is about wishing you could eat paint and other things you shouldn’t want.
I have been vividly inactive,,,, but now I have an important thing I am very invested in and excited about!
I won Newfound Org’s 2019 Prose Chapbook Prize ^^^
And Things From the Creek Bed We Could Have Been is my debut collection of surreal short stories from this independent press and it’s out for preorder now in both ebook and print here!
https://newfound.org/product-category/print/chapbooks/prose/claire-oleson/
I’m very proud of this work and so delighted it’s found a home with a press that makes beautiful and hand-bound books.Consider taking a glance if you’ve got a moment or an interest in learning about Magritte or fish guts or Cerberus or gender thank youuuu.
Why are the peaches in the river and how are they about divorce? Gonna have to find out.
Also consider reblogging to support an independent writer and press in one fell swoop, thanks so much!
art cuz I haven’t posted in a bit
she’s small and made of sodium
(just lil new art o mine)
she’s small and made of sodium
(just lil new art o mine)
Excited to have a short story in the upcoming issue of Bridge Eight
today the air is dim, oyster-shell dim cut through with sheens of rain, coming from far off, nearly off-screen, with cold signed at the bottom of every cloud-bank.
the sky is longer than the word it takes up or the words it takes down when snow happens in front of the billboards, the ads, going white.
- C. Essington
the fire going down until its just loose heat and fruit, the quick lisps of faces caught at its edges, those missed-stitches of expression, the looping sugars of eye-contact swimming softly, breathing glow.
the fire going down until its just loose heat and fruit, the quick lisps of faces caught at its edges, those missed-stitches of expression, the looping sugars of eye-contact swimming softly, breathing glow.
half way done with college, home and safe in the chlorophylled center of michigan’s palm, okay.
I ate two kumquats and just have one final exam left so we just gotta power through, kids.
I don’t know who the kids are, but they get it.
Prof: You have to write this essay about more than one text, bring the works in discussion with one another.
Me, setting up three books across from one another at a mini dinner table: I got it I got it shhh...
Me, after pouring them all glasses of wine and setting out a nice cheese selection: Talk to each other, guys.
A poem I recently had published by Zetetic Record.
A poem I recently had published by Zetetic Record.
small scales
through the window’s glass I catch the picture: blackberries cupped in the inhale of a milky-ceramic bowl.
I spend a few seconds mistaking them for dots of caviar because this house is so nice, because they don’t seem to start or end but mill their dark globes across eachother’s chests — close enough together to trade bodies like clouds swapping weather.
I crack the black eggs and suggestions of fish flash in my head, a pocket-knife clicking open, flanks of silver slicks turning their skin to metal on the light.
then the glimpse of a sleepy blue sheen waking on the dark fruit drains the moment of its ocean; blackberries.
blackberries in the small bowl looking like fish coming on. from here, water is just another word for change. I put another shred of push into my bike and it goes,
away from the window’s false eye and I wonder what else in today could flash open with blue and switch its biology from behind the glass.
- c. essington
haven’t posted in a while but today I won the Propper prize for poetry at my college and also I got a nice coffee so
drawing excerpt.
prof: you use some awkward phrasing in this sentence here
me: me too
prof: what
me, with a brain full of exhausted bees: what
I covered her neck with my left palm as I carried her up the hill. I’d been letting my hair grow and it had been growing fast, slipping my whole body back into the version of “girl” my grandparents understood. Oh, she wasn’t heavy, just cold and still. My hair grew down in tens of cowlicks, each edge gesturing out differently, looking like briar or a shoddy charcoal drawing. Underneath my palm, I could feel the pocket-knife slits of gill studding her thyroid. I knew the house, which burned and simmered in its yellow glow, was empty. I knew my hair ended around my clavicle, jutting off suddenly like scorpion tails.
Her rib cage was slight, her skin almost like a frog’s in its sheen and lichen-colored tint. I carried her up the hill and it didn’t even exhaust me. My hair got in my eyes, making it seem like I was hiking through a bramble patch. But the air was clear and the dark was building itself up like a good story. I wondered where I’d end. Her breathing seemed to come off from miles away, all of it slow and tired and as if it had touched the mountains before it bled out from her mouth. What she’d been doing, what she’d been being, I wasn’t sure. I’d never seen anything like her before, but I tend to be a calm person, so I am okay with what’s terrifying and what’s new and what’s soft to carry uphill.
Once we’re at the door, I kick the handle in and the yellow hits us like a pierced yolk pooling across ceramic. I set her on the table, her long body composing its life distantly. I get water from the tap and fill a glass and drink it while leaning on the counter. She turns once in her sleep. I think she can breathe the air. She’s been looking like she can. I suspect she’ll be up soon. I wonder what she speaks, if she speaks at all. I wonder if she’s ever killed someone. I wonder if her hair grows fast, jeweled here and there with clots of duckweed, slipping over her eyes when she works hard. I will go fill the bathtub. I will carry lilly pads up from the pond in my palms, holding their floppy lives close to my sweater.
I will ask if she likes acrylics or the wind or staying in bed on saturdays. I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’m sure we’ll get over each other at some point. Years from now, after we’ve already divorced, I’ll see her in some cafe, her webbed toes cushioned in elongated oxfords, and we’ll do the thing where we hurt and then we nod and then I order my latte and walk out like fire. I’ve already left her, so I fill the tub and I smile at the water. It’s new and terrifying and so soft to carry uphill.
-c. essington
I really love your piece that starts with, "I covered her neck with my left palm as I carried her up the hill." It's stunning!
Thank you! That’s very kind and much appreciated.
After The English of the House Has Gone to Sleep
candle on the wax of a boy’s face, hemorrhaging light, palpitating the picture into morse code. his eyes comes out on letters no one reads.
the bloom of skin skips in and out of the night — a scratched record or a good throw embossed into a flat stone sent, alive, across some river’s softest verse.
- c. essington
wow. your writing piece on carrying the girl up the hill and filling the bath was astounding. like i was listening to something while reading it, and had to stop the audio because i wanted to pay way more attention to what you were saying. the imagery was already great and then you added metaphors that were perfect. like her breathing seemed to come from miles away, and the yellow door that spilled yolk onto ceramic are super lines. "I think she can breathe the air." was my favourite line. wow x
AH thanks this is so kind!! Thanks so much for reading. Honestly I can’t say that enough, it helps a lot to hear that it maybe gets read/ matters a bit to someone for a moment. I hope you have a lovely week.
I covered her neck with my left palm as I carried her up the hill. I’d been letting my hair grow and it had been growing fast, slipping my whole body back into the version of “girl” my grandparents understood. Oh, she wasn’t heavy, just cold and still. My hair grew down in tens of cowlicks, each edge gesturing out differently, looking like briar or a shoddy charcoal drawing. Underneath my palm, I could feel the pocket-knife slits of gill studding her thyroid. I knew the house, which burned and simmered in its yellow glow, was empty. I knew my hair ended around my clavicle, jutting off suddenly like scorpion tails.
Her rib cage was slight, her skin almost like a frog’s in its sheen and lichen-colored tint. I carried her up the hill and it didn’t even exhaust me. My hair got in my eyes, making it seem like I was hiking through a bramble patch. But the air was clear and the dark was building itself up like a good story. I wondered where I’d end. Her breathing seemed to come off from miles away, all of it slow and tired and as if it had touched the mountains before it bled out from her mouth. What she’d been doing, what she’d been being, I wasn’t sure. I’d never seen anything like her before, but I tend to be a calm person, so I am okay with what’s terrifying and what’s new and what’s soft to carry uphill.
Once we’re at the door, I kick the handle in and the yellow hits us like a pierced yolk pooling across ceramic. I set her on the table, her long body composing its life distantly. I get water from the tap and fill a glass and drink it while leaning on the counter. She turns once in her sleep. I think she can breathe the air. She’s been looking like she can. I suspect she’ll be up soon. I wonder what she speaks, if she speaks at all. I wonder if she’s ever killed someone. I wonder if her hair grows fast, jeweled here and there with clots of duckweed, slipping over her eyes when she works hard. I will go fill the bathtub. I will carry lilly pads up from the pond in my palms, holding their floppy lives close to my sweater.
I will ask if she likes acrylics or the wind or staying in bed on saturdays. I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’m sure we’ll get over each other at some point. Years from now, after we’ve already divorced, I’ll see her in some cafe, her webbed toes cushioned in elongated oxfords, and we’ll do the thing where we hurt and then we nod and then I order my latte and walk out like fire. I’ve already left her, so I fill the tub and I smile at the water. It’s new and terrifying and so soft to carry uphill.
-c. essington
drawing excerpt.
I covered her neck with my left palm as I carried her up the hill. I’d been letting my hair grow and it had been growing fast, slipping my whole body back into the version of “girl” my grandparents understood. Oh, she wasn’t heavy, just cold and still. My hair grew down in tens of cowlicks, each edge gesturing out differently, looking like briar or a shoddy charcoal drawing. Underneath my palm, I could feel the pocket-knife slits of gill studding her thyroid. I knew the house, which burned and simmered in its yellow glow, was empty. I knew my hair ended around my clavicle, jutting off suddenly like scorpion tails.
Her rib cage was slight, her skin almost like a frog’s in its sheen and lichen-colored tint. I carried her up the hill and it didn’t even exhaust me. My hair got in my eyes, making it seem like I was hiking through a bramble patch. But the air was clear and the dark was building itself up like a good story. I wondered where I’d end. Her breathing seemed to come off from miles away, all of it slow and tired and as if it had touched the mountains before it bled out from her mouth. What she’d been doing, what she’d been being, I wasn’t sure. I’d never seen anything like her before, but I tend to be a calm person, so I am okay with what’s terrifying and what’s new and what’s soft to carry uphill.
Once we’re at the door, I kick the handle in and the yellow hits us like a pierced yolk pooling across ceramic. I set her on the table, her long body composing its life distantly. I get water from the tap and fill a glass and drink it while leaning on the counter. She turns once in her sleep. I think she can breathe the air. She’s been looking like she can. I suspect she’ll be up soon. I wonder what she speaks, if she speaks at all. I wonder if she’s ever killed someone. I wonder if her hair grows fast, jeweled here and there with clots of duckweed, slipping over her eyes when she works hard. I will go fill the bathtub. I will carry lilly pads up from the pond in my palms, holding their floppy lives close to my sweater.
I will ask if she likes acrylics or the wind or staying in bed on saturdays. I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’m sure we’ll get over each other at some point. Years from now, after we’ve already divorced, I’ll see her in some cafe, her webbed toes cushioned in elongated oxfords, and we’ll do the thing where we hurt and then we nod and then I order my latte and walk out like fire. I’ve already left her, so I fill the tub and I smile at the water. It’s new and terrifying and so soft to carry uphill.
-c. essington
The Kiss - c. essington (After Gustav Klimt)
someone spent too much time on something.
drawing excerpt.
Not super important but my abroad application is finished! Hopefully I’ll get to study at Exeter in England next year. Anyone go there/ know info about it or want to share their experience?
I wake up in my wetsuit as the dark wakes up in its cold— some things are like this, as unavoidable as a body swept across a brain.
I start early and hungry, all my cells feeling new and round but crushed: the shapes a church bell makes when it halves the air.
the pond sits in the morning like an ache pooling across an old joint, a leg unbends, the water throws one sore and jagged gleam up the hill side.
I follow the path of glow down to where it throbs, the leaf-patched shoreline gone blue like snow in a long evening or veins trailing home.
it’s steep, the oxygen tank is heavy with metal and wind pressed on itself like a dried flower compacted to paper. I tap the tank it rings its dull voice, full of pages where my breath will write me down.
I step in and secure the mask to my mouth, the light kiss of other air bleeds in and I walk until the ground is gone and the water asks for my body to melt into strokes; a church bell.
the middle is not far and I get there, cold and like the light: tracing the air for home. the below is dark. the above only has its one moon.
the dive involves going headfirst, breathing. the black is around me like an eyelid closing, I turn on a flashlight, scrape the dreamed landscape for an iris and pupil.
I rove and slip and feel my skin starting to become the same cold as the cold. I hug my name into my ribs and try to keep my body inside sensation.
and then I catch it, the white gathered haze of my flashlight wakes up across the desk chair which, last week, you sunk to the bottom with rocks tied to its legs. you’ve always been like that— lovely, impossible, inexplicable— I sit and read the morning’s paper as it flowers out to snow inside the numb water; my body does the same.
- c.essington