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

  • Peak Milwaukee queer culture is

    slipping off for a smoke at the ER in below freezing weather and smoking in the deserted, practically flash frozen garden dressed in at least two layers (including your Carhartt coat, which you got from one of your kindest exes and is two sizes too big for you, even now) until you can’t feel your fingertips.

    Peak Milwaukee queer culture is being afraid to leave your house for years because you ran into the person who made you homeless again over a series of cascading misunderstandings at the same hospital, only to find out through a person you’ve always carried a torch for that they were so afraid of your eventual return that they packed up most of their polycule and fucked off to Denver.

    Peak Milwaukee queer culture is, despite your isolation, sounding Midwestern despite not being born or raised here.

    Peak Milwaukee queer culture is moving away from Milwaukee with her with only the clothes on your back for eight months under the guise of a visit after your partners no longer seem to hear you and it feels like talking to your mother all over again.

    Peak Milwaukee queer culture is missing the lake and her dull, deep silver roar even months after you’ve last seen her, no matter how much you love your new city, no matter how much you want to move back East. You call her your wife, just as you have since the first moment you saw her, and your love for her feels more queer than any relationship you’ve ever had.

    Peak Milwaukee queer culture is always moving back to Milwaukee.

    Peak Milwaukee queer culture is building a life with your soulmate and your soul community in Milwaukee, no matter how shitty and cold it gets here. You learned a long time ago that this town will provide, and you saw the best and worst of humanity here. You saw bitter winters shudder into the most beautiful springs you’ve ever beheld. You know and love this city’s underbelly (and you firmly believe you cannot truly love a city without loving the soft, violent, vivid, pulsating underbelly of it first.)

    Peak Milwaukee queer culture is forever having to show other queers who aren’t from around here where your town is on a map – and despite your mixed feelings and experiences here, being goddamn proud to live here.

    -Allēna 12/2/2025

  • I wrote this today. It’s called “why I love you”.

    you asked me once 
    suspended over a chasm of grief 
    why I loved you 
    I couldn't string the words around you to tell you then
    so I shall attempt to tell you now 

    you are a lavender field 
    earth still wet from spring rain
    and loving you is learning to dance again 
    hair still wet through the rows of flowers on 
    these crippled legs 
    no matter how long it takes to get the steps right
    no matter how long it takes to move without falling 
    you are a game of chance 
    and loving you is taking the tenderest risk I've 
    ever known 
    loving you is lilac, pale blue, and gold like the 
    subtle ring around your irises when you look at 
    me

    loving you is slow mornings and evenings that 
    always seem to go too fast 
    loving you is enough memories to fill a Martian 
    year and enough emotion to fill an entire planet 
    loving you is savoring 1001 days and nights 
    for all they're worth and never, ever taking each 
    other for granted
    loving you is allowing myself to be broken open
    and reborn, again and again 
    loving you is allowing you to do the same 
    and loving you is meeting the people you love 
    (because it's never just been us against 
    this crazy world)
    and finding that I trust you even more after doing 
    so because they're some of the finest people 
    I've ever known 

    you are multiverses 
    you are adventure 
    you are passion and fire 
    you are the ripple of time dancing 
    you are everything and nothing at once 
    loving you is learning to hold all of that
    in a single touch (and God does it feel so good) 
    I bet everything I had and then some on you
    because the moment I saw you, I knew I was 
    yours 
    and I would fucking do it again in a heartbeat 
    that is why I love you. 
    -Allēna 12/1/2025

  • “We really are very small, aren’t we? Fungi are like a map of the stars here on this planet”

    -fire bars from an unknown headmate who said this upon learning more about the fungi growing at the Chernobyl meltdown site and promptly vanished

  • Emerson and I went to a lovely witchy shop today.

    I got a self love kit and he got an art print. We also spent 3 or so hours in a laundromat in the snow, but it was SO worth it. -Allēna

  • There’s supposed to be a big snow storm coming in.

    Reports are calling for over a foot of snow. It was clear today, though. We’re under a winter storm warning until Sunday. It’s only November. I suppose we’ll see…

    -Allēna

  • I wrote this early this morning. I’m very proud of it.

    I've spent too much time
    wrapped around the axle of your love 
    three “I wish I didn't miss you” winters soured 
    I am regretfully tightly wound and solemn
    every day’s a funeral and I break the cold ground 
    hours before daybreak 
    this is one burial that is long overdue 

    I don't hate this city 
    I have come to love it perhaps in spite of you 
    I make praise to its neighborhoods and 
    the lake effect snow 
    my world is finally becoming bigger than the 
    four walls that we share
    you no longer dictate the pace, nor do you set 
    the price of it
    there was once a time that I would have gone out
    and bought the entire city for you if only you'd 
    asked, unto half my kingdom, but you never did
    and now you hate me for things you never 
    had the courage to say 
    and the lies that I drank from your mouth 
    like a perverse communion, for
    when I laid us to rest, you
    had only ash to eat and 
    nakedness to wear 

    so wander these cold, crooked streets wild
    calling for someone to cover up what you did
    some new soul to eat your sin
    while I repair the frayed ends 
    I tore from you

    -Allēna 11/27/2025

    Fediverse reactions

  • My new headmate has a villain song.

    I wanted to post it here now that things with Zelda have gone…south, as it were.

    It is titled “Australis.” Eight wrote it a year ago. Enjoy, along with a bonus meme.

    -Allēna

  • Reblog of MythicMuse:

    Reblog via MythicMuse

    @opensorceryy Aww sweety no!!!! I’ve been watching you guys just be your happy selves and was so glad for you all. Why people gotta ruin perfectly good things? I’m really sorry that happened.

    I really appreciate your kind words.. it’s been rough since finding out, especially since we all live together now. I’m tough, though, and I’ll make it.

    -Allēna

  • This is my performance at Freight 38 tonight.

    I have no idea what to call it, but it’s about my most recent breakup and the maelstrom of emotions that have come with it. Lazarus wrote it at workshop this past week and I performed it with assistance from Australis to not break down onstage.

    I’m thankful for Australis, he’s been really helpful as a brace while I process all of this fuckery..

    Emerson filmed this, as well.

    -Allēna

  • Allēna performed a very vulnerable piece tonight at Poet’s Monday.

    This is called “body politics.” Here is the performance.

    -Australis, he/him, hello, I’m new.

    Fediverse reactions