Emma Kent-Abate 🌱

@emabate.bsky.social

90 Followers 132 Following

a troubadour of sorts. stories in underbelly press, necksnap mag, and folklore review

Marcy thinks of Tyler, now somewhere between the wheel and the windshield, and how the still rabbit before her is not the only casualty of this wreck. She then comes to the realization that Tyler's wellbeing means nothing to the creatures gathered before her. They have only seen this mess before them, and everything between them from their understanding to their mere biology is lost in translation. Marcy will have to plead her case best she can in words she does not understand. She opens her mouth, a sea of copper and red salt escaping her lips. She speaks the only word that comes to her, knowing it would bring her great difficulty to say anything else.
whiteboard doodle with the quote “Does the whale’s magnitude diminish? — Will he perish? Persist.” with one whale illustrated above the quote, and one illustrated below
my chapbook, CURATORS OF ABSENCE, with a cyanotype blue cover, being held with a shipyard in the background
“Coyote” by Joni Mitchell “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon “The Boxer” by Paul Simon, Jerry Douglas, and Mumford & Sons “Clocks and Spoons” by John Prine
You're a long way from London, you tell him. Cut the shit, he responds without pause. He roots through your center console, chipped nails clattering against the cracked plastic covers of CDs. Garbage, he says, just bluegrass. He presses a button so the stereo spits out your Jerry Douglas and returns to searching for a replacement. John Prine. Figures, a monster like him would try to find the empathy of a wordsmith. At least you like to sing along to the B side. You laugh offbeat, he tells you, you sound like a dying horse. I'll throw you outta this damn car, you say. The deer can eat you raw. I'm not afraid of long legged lawnmowers, he says. I'm at the top of the food chain. He shines his bright teeth at you and suddenly you understand why Prine promised to shoot the moon right between the eyes
“Graham paused in the middle of the corridor, his gaze set on the wall. For a moment, I thought he was analyzing the fading wallpaper, until I saw the pale leaves of the floral pattern begin to move. ​ “Graham slammed his palm against the wall, creating a resounding thwack that echoed down the hallway, rattling the portrait frames and making me jump. I inched closer, noticing half a dozen honeybees climbing up the wall, clinging to paper daisies as if they were made of real petals. “‘Damned things,’ said Graham, rubbing the exoskeleton residue from his fingers. ‘I’m afraid our home may be infested with them.’”
A 3x3 moodboard featuring (left to right, top to bottom): a warm cup of tea, a spooky graveyard, a young woman walking with a candle, a figure overlooking a gothic house, the quote “I’m afraid you have found refuge in the wrong house, Miss Beatrice.”, two figures walking through a bleak landscape, a bee before a mirror, a large house on a dark hillside.