Open Sorcery

Open Sorcery is the world of Lazarus Halliwell.

Excellence and batshittery, done on purpose.

I’m Lazarus. I make art, music, poems, plays, and magic for the quiet, brilliant, broken ones. If that is you, welcome home. I adopt your kind.

[Subscribe to my email list and I’ll send you a track I don’t remember recording.]

More about me here.

Please note that, with rare exceptions, any and all names mentioned in this blog are pseudonyms except our own. We want to be able to speak freely without doxxing anyone.

Blog

  • Eight wrote this in 2022.

    it’s images like this i’d live and die for 
    kept securely within my chest, 
    a less piercing form of homesickness 
    more beautiful - 
    you aren’t here and yet i feel - and i want you -
    as if you were in the next room 

    it’s been years and i am just now telling you 
    things that i, before, kept lodged in my throat 
    it scares me still but i want you to know 
    the same way i did that way in july when i first 
    overcame my fear 
    so let me find words for the finest kind 
    of golden hour within my mind - 

    you call me a hurricane, a sea
    but what if, for a moment, i was still, 
    held, wrists in your hands 
    above my head?
    i am all angles and curves in all the wrong places 
    hard-edged everywhere i should be soft
    eyes too dark to be this light 
    but what if i was beautiful, something close to gentle,
    then, there, to you?
    i’ve spent my life as soon as i could 
    running, but what if, for once, 
    i didn’t want to flee, 
    held fast in that early morning light?
    then at last, desperation could go unspoken, 
    but be known and seen and felt…



  • EGAD, THIS IS BUT A FLYER! And I’m hosting a VERY real poetry performance in my Discord server with the brilliant @mkzariel on March 31! Who wants to party?! Join here: https://discord.gg/8uzCR3hFN

    #wisconsinpoets #party #discordserver #queerart #supporthumanart #transart #transpoet #transauthor #virtualevent #transcommunity #chaos

  • GET A LOAD OF THIS EFFING FLYER!

    (In all seriousness, you should come see @mkzariel and I perform @ the Lions Tooth on April 4th. It’s gonna be Awesome)

    #milwaukee #poetryperformance #liveevent #queer #trans #wisconsinpoets #booktour #author #poetry

  • This poem kinda happened to me just now.

    -Allēna

    #poetry #processing #chronicfatigue #queer #wisconsinpoet #queerpoetry #musician

  • I woke up and I had to type this out before I lost it.

    I look at the fireworks show that has become 
    of my life and call each spark and sparkle
    something different, divorced from me
    as if I were watching the show on a field 
    on the 4th of July 
    and it isn't my own life that keeps exploding - 

    ~this came to me in a dream

    -Allēna 3/19/2026

  • I had a great date today.

    It turns out that the set of keys Emerson made for me didn’t work and he was at school, so my partner and I just chilled out inside and ordered in. She made me laugh so hard at one point that I had a coughing fit and saw stars 🤣

    It was a wonderful time and I hope I can see her soon 💛

    -Allēna

  • Mk and I are going to be doing another joint reading!

    This time it will be in my Discord server, the opensorceryy club.

    It’s on March 31 at 8PM and I hope I see y’all there 💛 mk will be reading selections from its recently published chapbook, Different With Him, and I will be reading some very queer pieces from my most recent zine, Fear Not The Brave Pain, and beyond.

    I’m stoked.

    -Allēna

    Fediverse reactions

  • I performed “thirsty ghost” tonight at Linneman’s.

    -Allēna

  • “thirsty ghost”

    you lived thirsty
    you wanted to set yourself on
    fire – and in the end, you succeeded
    in glorious, standing room only effigy
    planned to the last detail
    as only you could do

    I sang at your funeral
    but it never quite felt like the end
    I carried all the crushing weight of you
    when it felt like the sun went out
    and I’ve been stumbling through the dark
    for the past ten years
    when it seemed like the rest of the world
    couldn’t wait for both of us to die

    I’ve persisted
    a devil’s bargain but one I’d take again
    and again
    just to get to spit in their smug fucking faces
    (or on their graves) and tell them that in the end
    even you didn’t get to define me and
    they, especially don’t get to twist your memory into
    a weapon to cut, sear, break, or peel me into their
    image

    I did that myself
    I shattered myself into the form I desired
    my body became a war torn land the rest of the
    world forgot
    I swore to make them remember
    I peeled layers upon layers of self
    from this soul
    I added more and removed them again
    I fit seven lifetimes into these twenty eight year
    old ancient bones
    I broke the fuck out of my slowly failing heart
    if you had truly known me
    would you be proud?

    or maybe I joined you in the afterlife
    maybe this is hell
    maybe all the devils are here
    maybe I’ve always been empty

    -Allēna 3/15/2026

  • I did this today.

    I had so much fun.

    My hands were covered in red paint for a longggg time afterwards…

    -Allēna

    Fediverse reactions