channel-surfing

by Ariel Clark-Semyck

Benjamin DeYoung

a woman plays her father on tv. a woman in a hawaiian shirt gets pied in the face to orchestral music. a woman puts on clown makeup & lets a hen walk across her chest while she does a back-bend. a woman sips chicken broth sadly while her husband holds the spoon. a woman wearing a silk-robe cries with her mother who is also wearing a silk-robe. a woman dresses up as an angel in a negligee & hands out shiny insults. a woman walks into a photobooth. a woman leaves the circus to go with a gentleman to a bright pink tearoom. a woman rocks her baby’s crib with the tip of a spatula. a woman drinks from a chalice full of other women’s homemade lemonade. a woman eats a raw celery stick in a givenchy dress & groans. a woman lies on top of a pentagram & screams love me. a woman stirs a big cauldron of it’s a secret! a woman walks down the street with a brown paper bag full of hamburger meat. a woman grows a fishtail & flops down a marble staircase. a woman gets lost in a maze made from chaise lounges. a woman drops her tampon in the toilet like it’s a maraschino cherry. a woman wrecks the plumbing. a woman leaves a photobooth without any photos.

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Ariel Clark-Semyck is a writer from Chicago and a graduate from Miami University’s MFA program. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in X-R-A-Y Mag, Witch Craft Magazine, Flypaper Lit, Bullshit Lit, The Shore, Heavy Feather Review, Grimoire Magazine, and elsewhere.