By Merridawn Duckler

Usually I’m all Emily’s got her problems and I’ve got mine. But sometimes I feel really bad she never found love, or she did find love but rejected it, or she had no idea what she was missing, or it was all about some Majesty. I wish I could’ve helped her, I really do. Genius is mad lonely, and truth-telling is always a sad end game for us bitches. Don’t we all die a little if some poor sod isn’t willing to stand up for that world? I mean be all in. In my spare time (haha) I’ve tried to do some checking around to see if there’s any legal options or a podcast, a campaign of some sort so I don’t just sit around doing nothing. But I’m not a school marm (sic) who has time to cross check like a million diary entries written in teensy tiny handwriting that looks like it was written with miniature crab hands. That is not my skill set. My skill set is having my whole universe rocked by a genius and wanting to acknowledge the source. I’m the first to say: People, give back. Reach out. It’s just a big challenge when everyone is dead. You kinda hit a brick wall there with how much you can do. I mean, I’m not stopping entirely. They say every time you read a thing and bow to the genius of the creator you’re one step closer. The question is to what.  

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Merridawn Duckler is a writer and visual artist and author of INTERSTATE (dancing girl press) IDIOM (Harbor Review) MISSPENT YOUTH (rinky dink press) and ARRANGEMENT (Southernmost Books.) Recent work in Plougshares, Denver Quarterly, Cincinnati Review. She’s the winner of the Beulah Rose poetry prize from Smartish Pace, Elizabeth Sloane Tyler Memorial Award from Woven Tale Press, judged by Ann Beattie, CNF prize from Invisible City judged by Heather Cristle and the Drama prize from Arts and Letters at Georgia College. Work in Best Small Fictions 2025. Represented by Blackfish Gallery in Portland.