Faith Hunter Brantley

Re-membering: a foreword

When I was a child, I thought grapefruit would taste like purple. Perhaps I thought this for years, or only once, or not at all. Memory is tenuous like that, all shifting colors and morphing shapes. I can only truly know what I know now, and sometimes, not even that. Perception is unreliable. Yet, hereContinue reading “Re-membering: a foreword”

The Power of the Dog Park

A few weeks ago, Maya and I took Ginger the pittie to the dog park. There were two revelations in that experience. Maybe 3. The dog park smells like shit. Hot feces and urine from concentrate. In spite of the foliage and park benches and dirt-gravel pathways, the pavilions and ponds, the dog park isContinue reading “The Power of the Dog Park”

The next, best thing

There will be a time when the thing grazes the tips of your fingers and you sense the displacement of the air between you and the thing. Do not mistake this displacement as your own. No. Your feet, shoulder’s width apart, are planted as they should be The thing was not yours. Not that one.Continue reading “The next, best thing”

And yet, here we are.

I did not write this because I stayed in the bathtub until all the suds were gone and the water got cold. I did not write this because it is not poetry. I did not write this because the Christmas tree is still up. I did not write this because my morning alarm goes offContinue reading “And yet, here we are.”

pâro and home remedies

Somewhere in the 13th hour of the workday, I hit a wall. Words were swimming on the screen. “Why can’t I ever get done?” Defeated, I got up from my desk and headed to the shower, armed with the new lemon-sage body wash and shower gloves that Amazon had just left at my front door,Continue reading “pâro and home remedies”

A fiscal, physical, metaphysical fast

I guess you could call this fasting. Since August 26, I’ve not posted on social media. I did sneak and check it a time or two (each day) until Thursday, September 3. This is my 7th day cold turkey. Coincidentally, we are also on a VERY tight budget until the 15th, so I haven’t beenContinue reading “A fiscal, physical, metaphysical fast”

Going the distance

They will judge you whether they know enough to do so or not, because a lie is the shortest distance between a stranger and a threat. Certain skin, shapes, tongues, ways of loving and of seeing God(s), the way your body moves or doesn’t, these are no mystery though, maybe, magic. You are a map,Continue reading “Going the distance”

Status

I’ve decided to get off social media for a while. I don’t know for how long. I do know that it had become a terrible time-suck and source of emotional self-flagellation. You see the posts. You read the comments. You click the links. You watch the videos. You hate everything. You “like” other things. Repeat cycle. IContinue reading “Status”

Re-entry

According to “How Stuff Works”, spacecraft re-entry is “tricky business”. I’m fairly certain that isn’t how aerospace engineers or astrophysicists would explain it. But, hey. *shrugs * Re-entry into the work world after vacation is tricky business, too. The object, you, launched into the freedom of space (space to breathe, to graze, to sleep, toContinue reading “Re-entry”