Author: bensidorenko
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scene where only one person made it to the writing workshop
INT. EMPTY CLASSROOM – NIGHT Scene opens with circle of desks in a dim classroom. Only one of the chairs is occupied. Countless sheets of paper, stuffed with text, litter the ground. The writer clears his throat and begins to speak, apparently to himself. No one else is present to disagree. ME (TO HIMSELF): It’s…
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rest area
The sky is blue in that way that it shouldn’t be, where it’s too good for us. If it were black and gray all the time, it wouldn’t be news, but instead, it’s blue despite everything. Fuzzy clouds cross the canvas like painted sheep. A distant airplane draws a knife across the blue. You’re mad…
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ukrainian
the family I do not know
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too late
more lie than redemption
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scene where we see the before
let me stick my hand in the damn blender if I want to. I used to be flaming swords and nighttime drives with the windows down and lungs full of spiteful happiness. a temple to a god that can still get it up. the city still blotted out the stars but at least the void…
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poe city
the streets breathe, for we all live behind stone
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dear sunrise ghost at the end of the hall
I thought ghosts were supposed to be transparent, but there you are every morning, a silhouette in the corridor, my cookie-cutter specter. Waiting for me to thank you. You wear the golden hour like you made it yourself. Letting the sunlight be angel’s wings, hoping that the window behind you is close enough to a…
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Dinner (with friends)
it’s an evening of promises to catch up
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unseen, unheard, untouched
When I wake, I am lying on the ground, caked in cold mud. My teeth are slick with my own blood. The sky is painted black above me, carefully starless and unglittering. Fireflies flutter around me, each of them dying in puffs of flame that consume them like the flick of a lighter. Their wretched…
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Marchbeast
March snaps Its jaw at me like It always does, more hungry than grateful for another meeting. again, all It wants is a year where i don’t knock on the door. or a year where It tears out my throat. but Its teeth find only dew and too many hours in the sunlight, a new…
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a tragedy set in spring
spring is here, and we don’t call it fate.
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messiah
i tried out to be the next messiah / but they said I had to believe in something / i’ve only been carving stakes out of dogwood / twisting mistletoe in arrows / no one comes to my sermons / since I can’t turn water to wine / my rapture is a bloody one /…
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mort du couer / sacre coeur
nothing is beautiful anymore not even my agony.
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abandoned vineyard
this Judas-place, this Garden. built and then forgotten, our own forsaken Eden. now the vines snake through shattered utility sheds, up rotting trestle, and across overgrown paths, bearing their sanguine fruit. – I press the blade of a knife against a stem, and it draws dirty red, a noose cut free, watering the ground with …
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saint fool
just me and the fool.
Sidorenko's Writing 