My uncle Gerry Karlsson was a storyteller—a great one. My cousins and I loved his stories and even loved the fact that they changed a bit—sometimes a lot—with each retelling. We'd all listen closely ... [+]
Sydney Sackett is a speculative fiction author and poet pursuing her English major in FSU, Maryland. Some of her work appears in Menacing Hedge, Blue Marble Review, MONO., and Not One of Us. Find her at https://sydneybsackett.wixsite.com/website. "Asymbiotic" is in Short Circuit #09, Short Édition's quarterly review.
Like pasteboard, the seeping planks
buckle underfoot, marked easily
with fingernail or jagged branch. A cool
fungus stench that prickles throats,
let off in filmy pockets when another
door eases open.
Decay fruits here
from the kitchen, sore, spore-forested,
to the bathtub film of yellow mold
and bedclothes thick as brocade
with a mossing mass of gray.
Warped and off-hinged, cabinets
open onto murky pickle jars, crusts of
black tomato sauce, pungent lumps, and
other delicacies unclaimed even
by the fuzzes that have bled
inside the house's flesh to feed.
buckle underfoot, marked easily
with fingernail or jagged branch. A cool
fungus stench that prickles throats,
let off in filmy pockets when another
door eases open.
Decay fruits here
from the kitchen, sore, spore-forested,
to the bathtub film of yellow mold
and bedclothes thick as brocade
with a mossing mass of gray.
Warped and off-hinged, cabinets
open onto murky pickle jars, crusts of
black tomato sauce, pungent lumps, and
other delicacies unclaimed even
by the fuzzes that have bled
inside the house's flesh to feed.