I once ate a mirror because
it was looking at me funny from across my bedroom,
and even as the jagged fragments began
to puncture the walls of my esophagus,
I continued eating, because by then
I had developed quite an appetite,
and just as I was growing
accustomed to the glass lacerating my tongue,
I was enamored by a wave of sweet pheromones
and wandered out of my home
into a grove of gargantuan rose hedges
whose fragrance was so alluring that
I crawled into one of them and allowed the
embrace of its silken petals to lull me
into a well-deserved slumber,
and even as its serrated thorns
carved cavernous wounds into my sides,
I continued to lie there because I had been feeling
rather drowsy anyway, and after about one or several hours,
I awoke to the unmistakable scent
of smoke with fronds of smog surging
beneath my nostrils accompanied by
the sinister tickle of flames cauterizing
the thorn wounds in my torso,
and I realized that my rose hedge had been
set on fire—a notorious hazard in
this part of town—but despite the unpleasant scorching
that enveloped my body, I continued to lie
there because I had been feeling moderately chilly before,
and it was then that I noticed the shard of glass
wedged stubbornly in the palm of my hand from my previous meal,
which conveniently reminded me of the dagger
I like to keep in my right pocket, granting me
the opportunity to slice the hand clean off, and even as
I was afflicted with a striking molten sensation,
I didn't mind because the glass was quite deep
and it would have been a tremendous hassle to remove,
and by then I was feeling entirely weary
from my excursion, so I decided to visit two of my friends
because they lived nearby, although traveling
there was a Herculean effort
due to my newly acquired medium-rare sear,
and once I arrived at their house—a rather ostentatious bungalow
masquerading as a château—I was greeted not by the welcoming
expressions of longtime companions, but instead by
faces of bewilderment and revulsion as they beheld me at their doorstep,
admittedly charred and somewhat impaired, but fundamentally unchanged,
and even now I can't help but wonder
why they always seem to judge me so,
as if I am different from them simply because
I enjoy stopping to lie in the roses every once in a while.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Braylon L. James is a sophomore at Ohio University with majors in English and Philosophy. His journey with creative writing began at the age of four after reading children's stories by A.A. Milne, and it has since become his foremost passion. For Braylon, there is no greater delight than creating an experience that will resonate with readers and allow them to develop a heightened adoration for literature. His catalog of literary influences includes friends, faculty, and established authors alike, and he aims to one day inspire those around him just the same. His writing is evocative of his background in classic fiction and philosophy, and he is prone to losing himself within the depths of a particularly enthralling metaphor.

Contents

Vanity

ABOUT THE AUTHOR