Open Sorcery

Category: Allēna’s Posts

  • That feeling when November.

    I fucking hate Christmas.

    -Allēna

  • “un-lotused”

    I’ve never been one to meditate on regrets
    of paths not taken, universes unexplored,
    for my regrets are few –

    when I want something, I show up for it,
    I find a way to it or I make one
    and the primrose path to success builds upon itself

    I would far rather meditate on failures,
    iterations where everything when wrong
    and then I made something beautiful from the
    ashes, lotus petals unraveling, daring to ask if he
    loves me or he loves me or loves me not,
    than the zest of life left unnoticed

    -Allēna 11/2/2025

  • “paper mind” – written 12 march 2018 by Allēna

    write something
    anything
    there’s cerebral spinal fluid
    where some of my
    brain used to be
    and it’s one of the many
    possible scapegoats
    to blame
    for why i am like this

    humor me for a moment
    picture a house with a single
    flap for receiving letters

    one letter enters
    	
    you don’t want the letter
    you set it on fire

    (but they’re like a hydra)
    (the more letters you burn)
    (the more come pouring in)

    	so you get more letters
    	and burn them
    	until you are suffocating 
    	in them

    my brain did that a decade ago
    i remember the very first thought
    it found a girl beautiful 
    and the panic set in
    the letters poured in
    and i drowned in thoughts like paper

    the mind full of paper has become 
    the paper mind
    people and places like wind
    blow through it and blow it open

    write something
    anything
    do not burn this paper mind
    though you can do so quickly

    quickly
    		quickly				
               still
    -Allēna

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  • “haunted tape” by Eight, 10/10/2021

    you may want me dead
    and sundered into pieces
    smaller than grains of sand
    but you’ll never tell
    and I will never know

    such is the punishment for twenty hours
    of touch that is torture in hindsight
    such is the punishment for
    shattering a fragile peace
    and believe me, if I could destroy
    myself that utterly
    don’t you think I would have
    already?

    surely you also know the hell I’ve
    seen?

    is it strange that I can still
    see her face in nearly perfect detail
    square jaw and blue hazel eyes
    I rewind the tape again
    and again –

    how do you not get what you want
    when it is offered freely
    before you even ask?
    before you even consider
    what it is you want?

    you only wanted security
    and safety
    and the comfort of routine
    I wanted her
    and I wanted you, too, once or twice –
    now I hold in the pain you
    wish you could see.

    someday you might get your
    wish. someday I might
    be broken into
    twenty six billion pieces
    just like I did to my
    dreams

    like you did to my trust
    and faith in a found home

    and I will go my fate
    head unbowed
    still wondering if I
    deserved it

    but still I carry on
    intact on the outside
    I find my strength in
    brokenness

    do I leave a piece of me
    in everything I leave behind?

    -Allēna

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  • Here’s my best performance of “hurricane lazarus” yet 💛

    THIS WAS SO MUCH FUNNNN!!!

    “hurricane lazarus” does in fact appear in fear not the brave pain, which is a part of the fantastic fundraiser bundle my friend mk compiled to help me with survival costs in this hellscape. Please check it out, it’s pay what you can 💛

    -Allēna

  • Well, I finally got over my odd fear of performing anything from Field Notes last night at Poet’s Monday.

    I performed “samson” and “rehoboth” (not shown).

    The fundraiser mentioned in the video and caption is here.

    -Allēna

  • “answer”

    I could ask my body
    what will I do when it has fallen
    and regardless of which side I try and
    coax, pry, cajole, or beat an answer from –
    the deaf side or the silent one,
    the answer is always the same:

    it already has.

    sixteen percent of my brain died before I was
    a year old, I fought tooth and nail to keep
    my own heart. (I was finally removed from
    the transplant list when I was 12)
    I’ve had to re-learn how to walk twice,
    I spent this past july remembering
    how to talk again
    after nearly dying for the nineteenth
    time. I couldn’t form a coherent sentence for
    a month after a seizure episode approximately
    twenty five minutes long
    I’ve been everything short of shot
    and sometimes I wish I had been
    just to get the dying over with
    because “what doesn’t kill you makes you
    stronger” is a goddamn myth
    sometimes what doesn’t kill you makes you
    wish you were dead

    the deaf side of my body and the silent side
    are asymmetrical, imperfect mirrors of each other
    an invisible remnant of the stroke in ‘98
    I can feel the right side but it doesn’t often
    tell me anything anymore because where it should’ve been able to talk my mother screamed
    over it and told me I was faking my pain
    and my sadness, my fear, that I was just
    looking for attention, and it was beaten into
    listening to her instead (she had a knack for
    going for the face)
    it took 24 years to fully break free and by that time
    my mind had shattered as well

    so, what will I do now that my body has fallen?
    same thing I’ve done since I was a child.
    rest, get up, do the damn thing again
    and try to listen for better whispers

    -Allēna 10/27/2025

  • We did blackout poetry in workshop today. This is what I came up with:

    I got this from an essay on Shakespeare’s King Lear.

    -Allēna

  • “quizás // unmaking” – 17 April 2023

    maybe I’ll write about the things
    I want nobody else to know about
    in code
    long after I get home –
    or maybe
    time will burn the pages of my diary
    make me ozymandias,
    and sand and hate will clear my name
    from everything and everyone I made

    to make way for birch trees and the wheat
    field behind your house
    and open skies when we drive

    I haven’t decided if I want to remember us
    or if I want the fire that robes these mountains
    or the brandy on your mouth
    to wipe my mind clean and absolve me –

    maybe death is a metaphor here
    either way
    maybe I want you to kill me
    as much or as little as you’d like

    -Allēna

  • “salvo ii”

    last night I made you a promise 
    of a spiral staircase worth walking down 
    a poetically just sort of kick to the chest -

    your heart nearly stops on a good day
    screaming odd time flutters when you're distressed 
    well, I've got some words 
    that will keep it pounding 
    right from the box I keep 
    locked tight in my head 

    I don't know why I love you anymore
    I'm just as much a prisoner of the emotion 
    as I am a prisoner here 
    the confusing as fuck 
    fact of the matter is, I 
    just do 
    I feel like less than half the person
    than I did three years ago when this 
    began 
    and the time has come for me to 
    break these unseen chains for the last time 

    and I don't know what keeps me from exploding 
    spite, sheer force of will, practice, 
    compartmentalization?
    you say you want better for me, then deliver
    if you can
    otherwise I'm no better off than I was
    with the manipulative would be jailers 
    that attempted to control me before

    so sit with this, torture yourself like I know you will
    when you see it
    let it burn a hole clean through 
    and simultaneously cauterize 
    what's left of your mind
    I don't fight with guns, fists, or steel
    I fight with words and the silences between them
    and win 
    and frankly 
    that's much worse

    -Allēna 10/23/2025