Alayna Frankenberry

Bubbly

AlaynaFrankenberry — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:27:00 +0000

Colored pencil and ink on paper 2008.

Why You Haven’t Seen Me in Awhile

AlaynaFrankenberry — Sat, 04 May 2013 03:40:57 +0000

After you left, I crawled deep under my bed down the hidden cavern to where I keep my devious contraptions. Unscrewing a stalactite, I unearthed the secret photographs I’d taken with my eye machine of you, sleeping or sweating and always very naked. I donned the special coat I only wear for scheming and slunk down an alley, knocking on a certain door that trembled like a mouth in the rain. I knew a guy. He’d deposed royalty with a single lock of hair, but as he stooped over your photos, shuffling, a new smile squirmed onto his face. They were too good, is what he said, and we chartered a boat to the coast of Crete where he knew a guy, he said, who’d be better at dealing this particular hand. Oh, how it grew away from me, the whole broiling plot. We rose from bending back alleys to galleries by the sea. How they swooned over you, ancient art collectors with their hands still warm from fingering Epimetheus. One by one, my photographs were auctioned away. Some made to hang in ornate frames in salt buffeted bedrooms. Some locked away in cabinets full of crystal. They heaped gold upon me, decorating me like the sole medium to a god. Their ardor grew to a fever pitch. Enlarging some photos, the townspeople built giant floats for parades or carried you to sea like a saint set adrift in a halo of bindweeds. Rudely copied versions of you appeared on t-shirts, candles, even scapulars which tourists snatched up with wild abandon. I’d meant to disgrace you, you see, to your friends and neighbors but here I am, so far away from you and everyone, and it’s gotten away from me too. Even now, I can hear them outside my tiny apartment raising a call for you. I can’t move under my many jeweled hats, but I can hear them, can hear their passion pulsing through the cold clay of my bedroom walls. They are in love with you, every one of them, and it is my fault. I should have never let anyone see you through my eyes.

Published in Gigantic Sequins 2010.

Self Portrait

AlaynaFrankenberry — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:42:06 +0000

Acrylic on canvas 2008.

Lackluster Apocalypse

AlaynaFrankenberry — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:46:16 +0000

Someone put their fist through the radio
and all weekend it played only Creed.
I tried to shrug it off, drove reckless
through the stars and woke up blanketed
in parking tickets. The Bible in my hotel
bathtub was stuffed with subscription cards.
My high school enemies kept inviting me
to the seafood buffet and all my sweaters
made me look like Dr Huxtable.
Pestilence. It was in the yellow yarn
and the crab Rangoon. I jogged
to the strip mall, but they were out
of priests or kaleidoscopes so I had
to keep looking through my own eyes.
I took myself to the half-price matinee
and threw popcorn at the screen
like a trained ape. The kernels stuck like
boils to the steel asses of celebrities.
Pestilence, I yelled to all the flapping seats,
Pestilence!

Published in The Oakland Review 2008.

Girl from the In-Flight Magazine

AlaynaFrankenberry — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:42:32 +0000

Ink on paper 2012.

To be Possessed by You

AlaynaFrankenberry — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:39:44 +0000

To be sorted, set among your souvenirs,
your stock photographs, your classics.
To be licked clean like a cat. To be laid out
some nights on your fire escape, bleached
by the moon to match your sheets. To be safe
in the style of rolled coins, safe like heirloom
pearls under glass, safe like sleep. To be announced,
to be spoken like a dead language, named like
a painting, arranged the way music is arranged.
To be reminded of the passing of hours. To be
reminded of promises. To be held together
like a broken figurine while the glue dries
on my wings. Some nights, to fall asleep under
your breath and dream my skin freckled with
mercury. Some nights, to fall asleep under
your hand and dream my body a nested doll,
only cages and cages, even into the heart.

Published in Gigantic Sequins 2010.

Sangre y Miel

AlaynaFrankenberry — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:05:57 +0000

Photograph of milk, oil and dye 2011.

Wake

AlaynaFrankenberry — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:53:47 +0000

for John Chir

The last woman at your empty grave
is grounding rosaries into the wind, is
stitching a history onto rice paper leaves, is
repeating your name and repeating
your name, is waiting for an echo.
The last woman at your empty
grave is interviewing the dark,
is carving memories between falling
stars, is clawing and re-clawing
the dirt, is searching the trees for
a witness. When the breeze traps
itself in the burrows of her scars,
the last woman at your empty grave
hears only carousel music. When
the marble ribbon of your name
unfurls itself, she shakes like a flame.
The rest of us are wearing party
hats, crouched in a darkened room
waiting to yell surprise for you
when you finally arrive. You are not
with the last woman at your empty
grave. You are in the room with us
wearing a hat. You are huddled
in the smallest corner, reaching out
and losing your hand in the dark.

Published in Open Thread 2010.

Clara

AlaynaFrankenberry — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:53:43 +0000

Colored pencil and ink on paper 2010.

Pet Project

AlaynaFrankenberry — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:09:18 +0000

I built the bear from what I knew of horses. I didn’t know running except towards joy so I molded his legs as sinewed spindles. When he was done, his mouth seemed too long, the slope of his spine distinctly equine but when I called him Bear he answered. I fed him warm milk in the morning and biscuits before bed. He slept beside me with his muzzle nuzzled into the hollow of my chest. We lived alone, Bear and I, in a wooden house away from town. Bear seemed to like this, would tread the perimeter till the grass dried in a halo. When the rain came we found ourselves with a moat. Bear seemed pleased with this, would huddle closer to me in bed, would wake before me and watch me shudder in sleep. The truth is, I didn’t know horses. I had no books but mirrors and a few yellowed photographs of what I’d left. Bear grew and I noticed things. A familiar glint in his eye I must have carved, a restless twitch about his mouth. One morning I awoke to find Bear’s clawed paw on my naked thigh, three lines of dried blood he’d drawn in sleep. I had to chase him out then, through the door and across the moat where he didn’t pause. I had fixed his eyes forward like mine so he could never look back.

Published in Weave Magazine 2009.