Published 1/18/17. This one is really, really special to me for three main reasons.

1. I finally got a story in Paper Darts. !!!
2. This is basically a spin-off of my forthcoming novel, where breaking into churches is a bit of a motif, and I often have such a stifling disconnect between my novel and my short story writing: they seem so different and I am riddled with doubt that if people like my short stuff they won’t like my longform stuff and if people like my novel they’ll think my fiction is too weird. It’s nice to see an intersect.
3. That ART.

Do you even know how the tops of my feet are the best place you could probably touch me but the bottoms, the worst? You’ll never know about my feet.

Look at these little paragraph breaks! My heart is all bursty.

I think this story is a little bit about when a love is unrequited but the body is v. much requited, a little bit about the ways the sacred brings out the profane in us, and a lot about obsession.

Remember how you found the reserve communion wine in the back of the church? Remember how you poured it into your mouth because you didn’t want to leave mouth DNA on the chalice? And I nudged your shoulder, a misguided prank, and it spilled all down your throat and onto your pale blue T-shirt. I laughed and you didn’t.

I wrote this story real fast, with Paper Darts in mind, and only submitted it to them. I’m not sure what I would have done if they rejected it, because it feels like something I would only ever read on their pages. It’s been a long-term goal of mine to get something published by them so now I can quit writing.

xoxo.