A Binary Heart

While many of us are staying ‘between’ our own walls during this difficult and strange time, we can do our part by sending good karma into the world. Doing our individual best to manage, stay as positive as possible, paint a smile on the mask, and share, share, share. Do not hoard, do not keep beautiful and remarkable works to yourselves. Uplift communities. Uplift souls.

I’d like to start sharing here by posting a link to some gorgeous and remarkable words by my dear friend, DS Levy. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, become familiar. DS Levy’s  stories dig into bone while playing on your skin. Click highlighted text or the image below, and check out her exceptional work available on Amazon!

On a personal note, DS is one of the most forthright people I know, in life and in her work. Deb enlightened me about the writing submission process years ago. Through her selfless support and unyielding belief in my words and art, I began submitting work in 2017. Without her dogmatic persistence, excellent editing skills, and friendship—I’d still be writing in my room and reading work to my dachshund.

If you have a book out there, I’d be more than happy to share your work on this blog. Just email me at amroselli.writer@gmail.com with the link. (Please don’t send work that includes any gratuitous violence, pornography…you get the idea)

And please, do continue to stay safe. I hope all your loved ones and friends are managing.❤️

Click highlighted text here to visit DS Levy’s site and read more of her amazing published works!

I Knew This Young Man When…

This is another darkly moving piece from my talented nephew.
Links to more of Daniel Kennedy’s marvelous work can be found below…
Please click here or on image above to visit original piece at Ghost Parachute Magazine.

Here are additional links for more of Daniel Kennedy’s work:

“Colossus,” Typehouse Literary Magazine, page 44

“Maid of the Mist,” The Madison Review, Fall 2019, page 38

“Film and Literature Holding Hands: Reflecting on Jordan Peele’s Us,” The Minnesota Review

Get to know Daniel’s darkly superb, intensely authentic voice now, and you might be one of the intelligent folks who can boast, “I knew this young man when…”!!!

Daniel 2012

My Talented Nephew’s Work

I should have done this sooner—

that is, to share my nephew Daniel Kennedy’s brilliant work. Daniel’s heart, down to the raw insides, is exponentially compassionate. He is not only a thoughtful and decent young man, his writing talent is boundless. The dedication he pours into his craft is humbling to behold. It is my privilege and honor to highlight some of Daniel’s work here.

Start reading him now—before you have to wait on a bookstore line for his autograph!

click here or on image below to enter

Leftover Sensations, new flash piece published in Free Lit Magazine!

LEFTOVER SENSATIONS

LEFTOVER SENSATIONS

When Luthien woke his skin was the color of flat sand on a starless evening. What the hell happened last night? He sees a sky not quite black. The moon, a shredded toenail hanging on a milky weave. Leftover sensations of tepid glass–thick tumbler, lazy ice.

Last evening he stopped on his way home. Between shots of Jack Daniels, Luthien remembers a powerful mouth. In the small bar–a big woman whose billowing lips could suck the enamel off teeth. What did he do? Did that insane mouth hoover the color from his body? Luthien’s fair skin that goes lobster belly pink on the beach is now dull grey. Was he vacuumed dry? Luthien hopes he’ll wake and find his skin its proper shade. But Luthien you are grey. Too bad.

Nervously he squeezes his eyelids shut. Shelby and her tears. She’d found him and Cassandra porn-style in ‘their’ bed. So what if he and Shelby picked out the duvet with coordinating sheets. The woman in the bar had lips like clamps–tight and hot. Big, deep red wet lips. Did he hear a name from that strange sucking mouth? Martianna, Maliana, Marvianna? A sentence slithers into his ear. A velvet tongue like he’s never tasted in thirty-eight years. Translucent hands pulling his hair so hard his head whacks the bar wall and he doesn’t give a shit. Her surreal mouth, a serpentine force plundering his desperate throat. Did that burgundy wet nurse utter something to his bourboned-out body?

Think Luthien. You almost talked Shelby out of leaving post-Cassandra fuck. The name. It will be important. Take a moment. Go through the minutes after her lips sucked your dick through your throat. Those red lips whispered something.

“When a heart is shattered, its pieces fall to earth. Tears of pain water and grows the blood rose that springs forth the serpent that feeds on the rat.”

The bedroom clock screams. Luthien wakes to the sun’s rays slithering past his silk curtains. His mane of hair, dripping sweat, soaking the grey cotton sheets. Saturday morning. Shelby would have slapped the alarm off then woken him with a tender kiss. 

They used to make love on Saturdays.


Love writing flash fiction, especially monster-themed. I let loose a bit more when invoking character voices. Hope you enjoy, leftover sensations, as much as I enjoyed writing it 😘
As the writing gods sometimes align themselves, my dear, faraway writing friend, DS Levy also in this issue with a masterful short, Pit Viper.
adore this cover art by Aisha Ali!