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Amanda M. Blake 🪚@amandamblake.bsky.social |
228 followers 369 following 646 posts
Horror and fantasy author, mid-age goth, horror movie aficionado (she/her, they/them), QUESTION NOT MY SALT TBA 2024
www.amandamblake.com
Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/amandamblake
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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Blood tests show improvement from December, and I imagine it's because I've finally been able to exercise over the last two months. Not as much as I'd like, but enough to make a difference. Exercise treats chronic inflammation, which helps across the board.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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a #mother watches her son
stumbling to #golgotha
mocked and scorned
with crown of thorns
a mother reaches for her son
staggering to afternoon's execution
someone takes up his scaffold
a mother wails on the rough road
to her first son's end
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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it doesn't matter
how our bones break
and blood blooms beneath
our exteriors
it doesn't matter
that our wings have been
snapped from our shoulders
and our halos tarnished
with rust like mold
a #devil's only response
to the fall
is to rise
again
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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a #goddess emergent
from concrete and glass
with cut plastic in her hair
adorning her shoulders
strewn with gravel
such that #angels weep
from smokestacks and exhaust
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
What's going on, Friday blog update: amandamblake.com/2024/07/05/t...
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
the universe is a night- #bloom -ing flower
#creation its opening into light in darkness
stardust the persistent scent of jasmine
expanding in hedonistic spread
but preparing eventually to close
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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from angels and demons to aliens:
this shift of #celestial bodies
spiritual to extraterrestrial
proves only an elephant's foot
or tail or tusk
too large outside
our understanding of
reality to comprehend
not to mention our inadequacy
to describe it
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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Network show I'm really enjoying is ELSBETH. The set design, wardrobe, and composition is breathtakingly bubbly and colorful and sometimes so well composed that they put me at total peace...right before Carrie Preston and guest stars make me crack up.
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Steve Silberman
@stevesilberman.bsky.social
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This is one of the most dystopian signs I've ever seen. Republicans are quickly turning this country into an unrecognizable freakshow.
113 replies 789 reposts 1923 likes
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
My flash fiction sea story "Snot" is one of this month's finalists for Crystal Lake Shallow Waters. Join us this month for the theme Horror in Paradise: www.patreon.com/posts/your-p...
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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de profundis clamavi ad te domina
spray of shark-bite seafoam
split legs crack open the shell
blood conjurer and a pearl
pulchritudo et sapiential
colors change underwater
all things fade gray to blue
emerge explode to sun color
with the tide
#renascentem
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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I'm supposed to be editing novella MAY COOLER HEADS PREVAIL, but it's too relevant to current events, and I just can't.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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One of the people I play pickleball with is deaf, and that's the kick in the pants I need to start learning more. It's reminding me a lot of learning shorthand, and I like it.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
the final #farewell
an exhausted gasp
of a brown curled leaf
shriveling
falling
on the pavement
and crumbling to dust
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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It's too hot to go out and everything is expensive, so I made a breakfast quesadilla at home, and it was sooo good.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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unbuckle your seatbelts
unstrap your helmets
remove your masks
put the pedal to the floor
when you reach the inevitable
stop
momentum means you'll fly
through the windshield
and won't have to see
the results of your own
homemade #impending
doom
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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There's a muscle in my side that has been fluttering like crazy since yesterday. It's like I trapped a bird in there.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Now that I've finished MASQUE (in a month!), on the docket for July: Edit MAY COOLER HEADS PREVAIL and figure out if novella or novelette, edit and proof CROOKED HOUSE (Thorns 5), edit and submit BOOK & CANDLE (Meridian 5) under other name.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
MASQUE: Finished my alt-historical gothic plague novel at 110,929 words! (will want to cut it down to under 100K, but that shouldn't be an issue) My brain is officially exhausted, so I'm going to give it a day or two to rest before getting into editing other works.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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you cannot break the #bond
between girl and #demon
no one else will ever know
how her insides taste
what flutters in her abdomen
how far fingers tickle
how deep claws pierce
how dark and stinking the
shadow embraced by her
tamed wild body
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
What's going on, Friday blog update (with a long poem in remembrance of the Pulse Massacre, to close out Pride Month): amandamblake.com/2024/06/28/a...
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The world happening around me: *burning, literally and figuratively* Me: At the climax of the book and the end is in sight, thank goodness, even though I won't be able to edit before end of month, my brain is so tired and needs a nap.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
#smoke -blackened lungs
on a hazy day
scorch marks at the back
of my throat like bruises
cracked-earth parched scales
of skin peels petals
from raw
scarified with the harbinger
of #doom branded
upon my forehead
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
smoke stretches a #shadow
pall to #hover over the land
and it cools the vicious heat
for a while
until what casts it climbs
crackling
over the crest of the hill
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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love so real it spills
into the #realm of #misery.
there's reason they call it
heartache, why lovers follow
their dead: because heartstrings
tangle like cat claws in yarn
and snag to the scythe
the reaper drags behind.
#quillandcrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Friday blog post, what's going on: amandamblake.com/2024/06/21/a...
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I actually love cicadas. I love their screaming in the trees. I do not love when I accidentally kick one on the sidewalk (what's it doing there?), and it proceeds to yell obscenities in my particular direction.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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misery #hidden in plain sight
in my eyes in my smile wide
rictus to shame a skull.
do i laugh or sob?
could you ever tell
or would you bother
to discern a difference
between grin and grimace?
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Small Wonders
@smallwondersmag.com
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Come down to the coffee shop and meet "All Of Us Witches" today, by @amandamblake.bsky.social. These crones have secrets to share that you won't want to miss:
"soon they are laughing / so hard that they cry / a murder of magpies / in sparkling silver and gold"
smallwondersmag.com/piece/all-of...
0 replies 6 reposts 5 likes
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
My beautiful long poem about the beauty, passions, and sorrows of the crone, and imagining a world of celebrated feminine power, and an uncharacteristically hopeful sapphic epilogue. I was so thrilled that this poem and its parentheticals found its home. smallwondersmag.com/piece/all-of...
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
bear me by #mystical means
to the staircase into the clouds
where my burdens lift as though
descending into water
where the air thins into dreams
and fog becomes substantial
as candy floss to a hungry little girl
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
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these #bizarre incidents have no explanation
officials say
citizens are urged to stay indoors after dark
and lock doors
close curtains and avoid looking at lights
in the sky
and should someone knock on your locked doors
do not open or
ask who's there
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
so you left without a note or a letter for something less caging or something far better, not minding that the cage of my heart is now empty of you, and craves to be filled again. (3/3)
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
dust more ephemeral than the breadcrumbs that birds pecked from the path to gingerbread. all i ever wanted was to hold you, keep you. all i ever wanted was for you to stay true and stay with me, but that was too much, too. (2/3)
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
with what do i #conjure you now?
#honeysuckle and rosemary, tarragon and thyme?
do i reach you with free verse or structured rhyme?
you never told me how to find you again,
how to trace your steps where they have disappeared, (1/3)
#quillandcrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
make me quake in my boots
moan and creak the floorboards
and mattress springs to a heartbeat
resonate echoes in my halls
a memory imprinted with
scratches on the plaster
and leave me #haunted
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I've found that Nightwish and Delain are good bands to listen to while writing my alt-Victorian gothic novel.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
What's going on, blog update: amandamblake.com/2024/06/14/t...
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
i have named all my teeth
but one which lurks
unnamed #unknown
skulking between molars
though he does nothing
to hurt me i cannot
help the thought
he only waits for
the right moment
to crack
#quillandcrow #crowcalls
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
lazy smoke in the air charred meat and burning gasoline i cradle a blossom lantern for the shadows (2/2)
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
under a massive #magnolia
with buckeye in one pocket and
smooth flint in the other
red clay dust on soles
and hem of my pants while I try
not to think about bloodsuckers
crawling up my legs or sweat
dripping my back sticky as
end of summer honey (1/2)
#quillandcrow #crowcalls
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
MASQUE: 50,004/100,000 words
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
paper covers stone
with crumbs of bark
and lichen over moss
levering the edge
to reveal life #beneath
damp soil rich with
worms and beetles
teeming alarm from
intrusion of light
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
place daisies on my grave in summer
sunflowers in autumn
turn heads
plant pansies in winter
keep color in my cheeks
sprinkle seeds in spring
to see what wildflowers bloom
paint from my buried brush
#honor my memory with life
breath and transfigured sun
#quillandcrow #crowcalls
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I'm wiped. Wrote and edited a piece of flash and wrote 6K more of MASQUE, which is 1K more than a daily word count that already pushes my limits, and all this starting later in the day than usual.
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
#woe betide the
woebegone damsel
who swoons to an
arsenic-emerald couch
on wings of poppy fields
fan the flame of
novocain
to numb the pain
persistent ache
of ennui
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
i'm too #sleepy for poetry
and too weary for rhyme
i think i've used up
all my words
#QuillandCrow #crowcalls
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
martin wake up don't make me get the cold water martin wake up sweetie can you hear me martin wake up (2/2)
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
martin wake up
it's time for school
martin wake up
we do this every morning
do we have to go through
this whole rigamarole every day
why can't you just wake
to an alarm
why must you be so #spiteful
why must i threaten bodily harm
just to get you up (1/2)
#quillandcrow #crowcalls
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Amanda M. Blake 🪚
@amandamblake.bsky.social
[ View ] |
What's going on, Friday blog update: amandamblake.com/2024/06/07/n...
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