Sheltered Missionary Kid Returns to America in the Year of Our Lord Jack and Rose by Claire Hanlon

The author of this essay blinks against a sudden deluge of color. Just a moment ago she was typing at her kitchen table, but now she finds herself in a garishly bright living room.

I am She and She is Me and We are They and They are all Together in this Speculative Memior

1.  MOTIF (T118) Girl married to (enamored of) a monster.
The man moves out and it feels like a vacation, which surprises me. 

Three Tales in Which I am Not the Princess

The Cupboard

Woman as Ouroboros

Half of last week’s linens load sits atop the washer, beyond the range of one cat who likes to piss in baskets. The other half is in the dryer, cold, having been at first too damp, then forgotten, then fluffed, forgotten, fluffed again. 

Washerwoman

Lift your eyes now and behold the Chorus hovering over us like a great pillar of cloud; it is the bodiless groans of airplanes and tightly packed suitcases and rusty boats and empty houses. Imagine they have voices to speak.

Vanitas

You will be surprised by the hopelessness that swells through you at times. Maybe someday you’ll learn to see it coming but until then you are easy prey, soft white legs dangling unprotected in a wide deep blue ocean of fear.

Selected work