It was dark, blustery. Like the opening moments of a pilot episode where you’re about to see something you can’t unsee, something violent or frightening or incongruently funny and you’ll be trapped, hooked. The scene was complete with a drab looking many-cornered building with plenty of places for shadows to linger. There was even a … Continue reading Low Sodium
Author: Raey L C Costain
Nonbinary anthropologist who draws things. UVic grad school.
Wool Gathering
Please excuse me not looking you in the eye. I’m off somewhere over your left shoulder, gathering my thoughts and the melting snow is flying off a tree branch with all the spirit of a spring river. Wool gathering, my gran might say in a tone that once would have stung and now simply makes … Continue reading Wool Gathering
Mark My Place
There is an urgency to a bookmark laying unused. What passage would it mark, on what words has it been placed? How many times did her fingers lay it down, snug against the spine, as she takes a shivering breath, book clasped to her chest and a gloss in her eye? The certainty, the joy, … Continue reading Mark My Place
I know why the women sing.
I know why the women sing as they pace the cliffs, the roadside, this hallway. I know what it is to stand as the emptiness grows thicker all around you. You wonder, is it so empty now because he took too much space then? And you bent and shrank and stretched for him until now … Continue reading I know why the women sing.
Ill fitting
I wrap myself in words like newspaper. Stuffed under a threadbare coat for warmth and comfort through the night and sometimes just to run my fingers across and remember. But you only every gave me phrases a sentence here and there. A scarf too thin to block the wind, a whole in my gloves and … Continue reading Ill fitting
Stay Warm on the Way Down
I didn’t think they were people at first. Huddled close in a mass of waving arms and worn out coats. They looked more like a grove of trees wandering slowly from the coffee shop down to the ocean, the dim light muting every colour into shadow. I didn’t think they would throw themselves into the … Continue reading Stay Warm on the Way Down
Sunday Awoke
The days of the week march by in capitals. As though each is its own being, named, dropping in for a visit once in seven. Each day has a favourite colour of course, and its own friendship with the moon. At times, when restlessness or need keeps us up to the wee hours, we see … Continue reading Sunday Awoke
Of Bravery and the Beginning
I used to say that I love the beginnings of things. The fresh start. The briskness of possibility that always smelt faintly of coffee to me, or shampoo, or perhaps the first day that winter starts to smell green. I would say that the middle is where you get bogged down in too many roads … Continue reading Of Bravery and the Beginning
This Feeling I Name
It is not longing that I feel. Longing has such a round and gentle flavour. Like the melancholy of children who can enjoy the sad because they have not yet fought for the happy And lost? Perhaps, Perhaps I have. It is not seeking that I taste. That word is far too alive for the … Continue reading This Feeling I Name
The Wind Whistler
She leaned against me; her fine hair caught briefly but she tugged it free with a sharp twist of her head. I could feel the weariness in her body as she slumped down to the ground. Something else, too. Suddenly, she seized a pine cone out of the dirt and hurled it away. It disappeared … Continue reading The Wind Whistler
Gosh Darn Sunlight 