#knotty poems

[knotty-et-al]

Into the vortex of the time capsule - the mirror maze turns into a cabinet of foreign and distant memories

Recursive nightmares fall apart

like a cluster of clouds

dissipating

and losing their form.

Disassembled.

Assimilated.

There is liberation in this nauseous encounter,

beauty in between the devastation.

Let it pass.

Life will find its way.

2024/06/18 mixed media

[buffalojournal]

Three Poems by Lauren Ireland

Small Sin

Now I am not young but the flesh of gods does not tarnish.

Have you considered sacrifice. The dying fir, crushed, just a small sin.

There are many things you can burn to placate them.

The memory of linden blossoms. The knotty rhizomes of devotion. Two and a half inches of hair.

The wheel of time has many hands.

Now you know every time is the last time.

Eurydice

for Linda Gregg

Madness is just the slow loosening of many small knots. True divinity is untying each bond yourself. True divinity is a little death, not quite enough. True divinity is being half-devoured by the snake that eats unnecessary things. It is a fire that burns away the threads, then it is a lit match in a closed drawer.

Released, I radiate a flyblown desire in a space between. Now I am a saint. I am the saint of terrible things, naked and angry, terrifying in my wild loneness. I fill a room. I fill a whole hell of rooms. You will need to make a new hell. I will not make myself small. I will not unmake myself.

Things scream and scream. It is frightened rabbits running through the forest in one of the many hells we have made. There was no backwards look. You did not turn to see my face, shivering and distant as though beheld through disturbed waters. The myth of love is a mirror. The myth of love made me. I followed you down, not out.

How You Could

Actually, I burn for you. It is not beautiful, this knowing, many-layered as the old rose that whispers when I touch it. It is the relentless dial tone of my heart at night. How I make myself a torch how I blaze so you can find me. It is a terrible fire. Here are all the ways I tried to stop it.

🦬 Lauren Ireland

[ahmarwolf]

PAW Volume 1 Now Available

If you like knotty canines, purrfect felines, and paw-some good fun, you’ll enjoy reading this collection of short stories, comics, and poems from talented furry writers and artists… just make sure to have one paw free! Grab “Paw” edited by @howl_folf at https://bewere.net/product.php?id=1016

[jim-webster]

A knotty problem

I have to start by mentioning a lady called Kitti. She was owner of an establishment where a lady could go and have her hair done, get a massage and numerous other small treatments that help boost a lady’s self-esteem. At various times I had read my poems to her clients as they waited for their hair to dry or had various other somewhat longwinded procedures. It was all great fun, the banter was…

[writer59january13]

Galley slave to obsessive compulsive disordered behavior announces...

Fore score minus xv orbitz ago from being centenarian

strong contractions forced me

to pass thru cervix,

buck naked bare lady,

I ranked as only grandson sharing

same surname as Aaron,

(mine paternal grandfather)

me the sole heir –

foreshortened to Sol Aire

evinced scrawniness then (as shown

via ultrasound), which at birth

became crystal clear,

unbeknownst to parents

obsessive hidden compulsive predilection

pronounced with social anxiety affliction

manifested later in life,

whose mental health of mine,

would find me at sea

schooled in counting fish,

where I did flounder with anguish,

nevertheless as newborn human being,

the propensity with panic attacks

a decade plus years in future

whereat yours truly

would wallow in despair

meanwhile bundled cuteness

ranked as excelsior,

though said infant

extremely agitated and fussy,

I possessed unusual fear

witnessed in scrunched

and furrowed brow

slightly resembled

quirky pissant outlier

tipping the scales

courtesy old fashioned

analog needled gear

greater or lesser

than seven pounds

(minus or plus a few ounces)

with a mass of (the following feature fabricated)

dread fully locked hair,

otherwise a gangly sack

of many lovely bones,

whereat obstetricians

could not help themselves but jeer

thus upon exiting

birth canal found

yours truly anxiously twirling loose

kinky follicular fibers according

to medical records prevaricated,

courtesy poetic character sketch, whose trademark embellishment endemic beginning to end of poem, (your job dear reader to distinguish fact from fiction)

reasonable rhyme now resumes

along current frayed thread

stitching baby me finding strands of hair wrapped around fingers

surmising in retrospect, I felt bored

without access to world wide web

infant versus aging baby boomer

expressed at early stage individuality,

and nonestablishmentarian stance

sporting knotty harried styled

swiftly tailored quasi/pseudo dreadlocks, gave Medusa a run for her money

(before they were in vogue)

tough as hemp cord

an anomaly, which

no app could compare,

boot nonetheless highly adored

and valued more than fine spun gold

resembling inimitable

indestructible filaments,

when taut could lift

off the ground a board

dill low, which no reference

manual could address

even topnotch experts

queried, could not explain

outrageous constituent rare

peculiarity the likes

never seen before,

though still insured,

a novel boot nada

so critical freak

of nature ma lord

hirsute component

partitioned in a triple tier moored

substantial pressure upon noggin,

entwining, looping, spilling somehow

interweaving insync with umbilical cord

into a mass of whirled

wide webbed wear suitable for

four seasons, which bamboozled,

grew like Kudzu

into an immense

globular mass galore

'bout the size of Rhode

Island) after one year hoar

more, and wove in part

from stem cell threads, nor

ceased proliferating after birth placenta

accrued intact and immediately put in cold store

room, a by very peculiar product

tinged with strands

of strawberry blond hair

evoking how lioness would roar

cocooning, contriving, and conveying

this tiny dude into self concocted

hermetically sealed giant spore

miniature mummy, who without doubt

looked like a lady

bug hide entombment

able to survive thermonuclear war

as a minor subsequent repercussion

the downy side understood,

impenetrable forest

filched countless growing years,

without jesting, when

figurative messed hair em scare em

bedlam reigned as a supreme nest

sans shrieking obsessed

invisible hoodlums

broke free their electric kool

aid acid test

from maximum security solitary

confinement investment

for naught busting andirons

weighing down with reinforced

steel trap door cladding

didst not bar

compulsive banshee

like imps of thee pervert,

but merely slow down

minuscule limbs

emulated a hitchhiker thumb

upon will could assume

Alaska Bull Worm sized Albatross

shaped anchorage) unsinkable (short

term) screaming, rebelling, quaking,

atomic sized banshee beastie boys,

et cetera with fiery zest.

[m58]

three from Rupert Loydell

IMPENDING DOOM

Tea or perhaps go buy a kite and stand for weeks until my body eats itself so that I am light enough to be. Need fizz and sugar, alcohol, to supplement my learning, instead eat brown banana, draw anatomical pictures, pretend that I don't wish to be elsewhere. Maybe I will go someplace and start a murderous cult. Is your day sunny and running away from you? My world is ending but I am not surrendering to anyone, just holding the handle of self-control, reading a poem about me I did not know you wrote.

FOUND AND ENABLED

She likes the fact her emails end up in my poems, sense disrupted, words disordered, taken out of context; likes that all the poets she knows take their coffee black, aren't intellectual, but happy to help dissect reality and pay the bill. It's easy to underestimate how comedy and satire remain enmeshed in the controversy of our endlessly awkward lives. Irony was hardly an invention of the postmodern though; most informal investigations are consummately poetical. Because of patient dissection we now know it is as likely that our work will be met with boos as with cheers and wild applause

and that duration alone produces a distinctly physical experience. Even in a clean room full of quiet you cannot escape from yourself.

BLOSSOM HIBBERT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND

Could she be a 21st century Selima Hill? I certainly hope not, one is enough. As invasive as Japanese knotweed, as knotty as a peacekeeping mission she is a bright sounding sustained note. Blossom Hibbert is not your friend but she might be Charlie Baylis, Martin Stannard or Alan at Leafe Press; a fig marmalade of their imagination, each busy in multiple dimensions.

If you swap O’Hara’s coke for a bathtub you end up with a clean stomach. If you seek a puerile thrill in silliness, strange pictures of seagulls, toilets and washing machines, she's your girl. Blossom Hibbert is not your friend. Her profound sense of tenderness, jumbled together with the excitement of being in in the modern world comes with accompanying scribbles. "It is too late for yesterday to begin."

Rupert Loydell is Senior Lecturer in the School of Writing and Journalism at Falmouth University, the editor of Stride magazine, and contributing editor to International Times. He is a widely published poet, and has written for academic journals such as Punk & Post-Punk (which he is on the editorial board of), New Writing, Revenant, The Journal of Visual Art Practice, Text, Axon, Musicology Research, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, and contributed chapters to Brian Eno. Oblique Music (Bloomsbury, 2016), Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Listen to the Sounds! (Routledge, 2021) and Bodies, Noise and Power in Industrial Music (Palgrave Macmillan 2022).

[writeralexapostol]

"My Castle in the Sky" A Christmas Poem by Alex Apostol

Poems are not my forte, so please be forgiving. I don't know what came over me this morning as I drove into work, except that it was the most beautiful sunrise of rose and wisteria I'd ever seen and it stirred the Spirit inside me. #christmas #poem

My Castle in the Sky A Christmas Poem by Alex Apostol I often think about my special place in heaven and all the possibilities it can be, I do not think it is a palace but a cabin in the woods not far from the sea. With a little stone pathway leading up to the door, It’ll have a grand fire place and knotty pine floors. It will creak when I walk and the fire will spit,  This home in the…

[whifferdills]

1, 3, 13

How many books did you read this year?

20 so far and I'm in the middle of another 3. which is a lot for me! rise and grind read 2 chapters a day

3. What were your top five books of the year?

excluding re-reads:

Ann Lauterbach - Or To Begin Again (fussy knotty poetry) (could swap with Natalie Diaz's Postcolonial Love Poem or Stacie Leatherman's Storm Crop depending on my mood)

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Chain-Gang All-Stars (near-future prison story that frequently reminds you it is very much about now. funny, harrowing, inventive stuff. will probably be made into a mid Netflix series)

Robin Nagel - Picking Up - essay nonfiction based on the author's time spent working for the NYC sanitation dept. super engrossing and eye-opening

Liu CIxin - Death's End - Well That Sure Is One Way To End The Trilogy!! sprawling SF epic concludes with a big bang

Megan Milks - Slug and Other Stories - bizarro is back baby!! the title story haunts me

13. What were your least favorite books of the year?

Simon Wincester's Atlantic was frequently infuriating and overall drained me of my last goodwill towards books that purport to be about human history and are instead about a narrow strand of Western culture. i finished it because i'd already bought it 1000 years ago and felt somehow obliged. 👎

[puppybog]

maybe not your anon crush, but I thought you’d like a furry little poem

fur brushed against clockwork, a little guy pushes against the gear. his paw feels awkward, his heart thumping with fear.

he hopes his affection is requited, with the turn of a word- he lays happily, excited! he feels like such a nerd…

A single gentle touch upon an ever aching body, the clockwork doth awaken to a gentle man so knotty... he clasps a paw in his and looks upon the beast before him. Requitted so! these feelings brought upon the weasel so slim.

He asks what for? this gentle touch awakens him from slumber, and follows up with "hey there cutie, can I have your number?"

[quitepossiblyknot]

It was written, we transcended obsession and worship, we worded commitment into linking, no more missing, both our mission is in inking, writing our visions into action, reaction to gratitude, an attitude that shakes belief systems, we insisting on enlisting our talents, giving, gifted, uplifting our spirits, pistons, this engine, piloting horizons, arriving at endless. Enjoyment. Voices heard. Learned. Listening is koi fish in black & white, radii, 180 times 2, find you and I circling, yes, I, like, you, mindful. Emptying out. Content. A bend in space, continue us. Continuum. Strenuous? Effortless? Perspectives sift, perception is a renewal, attuning, a tool, a fuel for shedding everything heavy. Removing the webbing, connected, network, let's work. Inward. Invert. Insert bookmark, took heart and placed it where you'd discover it, number 1, uncovering sum of us. Under what is most auspicious, responsive to delicious, finer tastes, refining place under the sun, no idea is original, until I met you, a symbol, solstice, prototype and archetype, forged light, for sight, I'm set, kindness our kindling, kismet, in-depth, chronicles, accomplishing the impossible. I'm for you. Root. Rooted. Rooting. Shooting up. Buds. With love.

Wallflowers ©2019, afroknotical

[euesworld]

"I'm a tortured soul for sure, you tie my heart in knots and it almost hurts.."

I'm an acrobatic, watch me fly across the sky like a pragmatic, haha - eUë

[lavienjin]

— writer’s desk

Updated: 11 September 2022

all works © lavienjin (prev. bangtanhome) 

hi, my name is saturn and here’s a collection of my works. please don’t edit, repost, copy, or translate without explicit written confirmation from me. most fics are 18+ so make sure to read the warnings beforehand!

↠ crosspost: ao3 (ALL) ↠ btswritingcafe

more from saturn: taglist | ko-fi | fic recs

KEY:

S - Smut

F - Fluff

A - Angst

❀ - Personal favourites

newest additions (top is newest):

hide away | pjm

switching positions | ksj

» ONE SHOTS «

— brightside [8k] | A, F | est. rel. au | teaser | ❀ ⤷ you couldn’t help but hold out hope that your beloved is still in there somewhere.

— bothered [7.4k] | S, A | brother’s best friend au | teaser ⤷ namjoon has tried so hard to bury his attraction for you, especially upon discovering that his youngest brother feels the same way. but you just had to make it difficult by showing up in a dress much too short and tight for your figure as you innocently beg for him to lend his body for practice.

— bigger & better [2.9k] | S | threesome au | ft. taehyung ⤷ fuck your gigantic roommates. they should have known better than to put your favourite jam on the top most shelf.

— speak only of love [4.1k] | S, F | s2l, supernatural au ⤷ Names give the beholder power. It's a lesson you've learned all your life, but it takes one fae to tear it all down.

— cruise control [14k] | S, A | street racing, ‘50s au | teaser | ❀ ⤷ namjoon loves the thrill of burning rubber and you’re trying to keep him alive.

» DRABBLES «

— good morning [1.2k] | S, F | est. rel. au  ⤷ a drabble about waking up in the morning

» ONE SHOTS «

— switching positions [11.7k] | S | sex work, friends to ? au | ⤷ seokjin tries to help you find the spark you’ve been missing, but maybe it’s just time for a fresh change in your company.

— knotty or nice [6.8k] | S | sugar daddy, est. rel. au | ❀ ⤷ you only see seokjin once a year, so you have to make sure your visit counts.

— bass boosted [2k] | S | musician au ⤷ you’re curious to explore the theory about bassists having superior fingering techniques. lucky for you, there happens to be an incredibly attractive bass player to help you with your experiment.

» DRABBLES «

— guided [1.2k] | S | camboy au ⤷ it turns out that the barista you have a crush on all has a secret second job behind the lens of a camera.

» ONE SHOTS «

—  just sit pretty [4.1k] | S | threesome, est. rel au | ft. jungkook ⤷ jungkook's hands are wandering all over your body while yoongi is asleep on your couch. can you fulfill your desires without waking him up?

— first love [11.3k] | S, A | fwb, office au | teaser ⤷ you’re not supposed to fall in love, so why did yoongi write a poem dedicated to you with the line: without you, i’m nothing?

— fuck you, min yoongi [2.4k] | S | fwb, infidelity au | ❀ ⤷ you’re getting married, but not to yoongi

» DRABBLES «

— the proposal [900] | F | est. rel. au ⤷ a drabble where yoongi tries not to think about what’s in his pocket

— one more [1.8k] | S | est. rel. au ⤷ a drabble in the bedroom

» ONE SHOTS «

— floored [5.2k] | S | foursome, idol au | ft. jungkook & jimin ⤷ it’s a foursome with jungkook, hoseok, and jimin.

» DRABBLES «

— soapy sense [1.8k] | S | college au ⤷ a drabble about hoseok’s frat doing a car wash for charity

» ONE SHOTS «

— hide away [1.4k] | S, F | secret lovers au | ⤷ jimin sneaks into your bedroom.

— esse tuus [9.8k] | S, F | incubus au | ❀ ⤷ you’ve been having strange dreams about your boss that seem to bleed into reality. ↠ part of the dulce somnii universe.

— floored [5.2k] | S | foursome, idol au | ft. jungkook & hoseok ⤷ it’s a foursome with jungkook, hoseok, and jimin.

» ONE SHOTS «

— it’s you all along [7.0k] | F, S | soulmate au | ⤷  you've been plagued by visions about your soulmate since as long as you can remember. could this be the year where you finally meet him?

— bigger & better [2.9k] | S | threesome au | ft. namjoon ⤷ fuck your gigantic roommates. they should have known better than to put your favourite jam on the top most shelf.

— et sic incipit [12.6k] | S | incubus au | teaser | ❀ ⤷ in which taehyung is an incubus and he has found his newest prey. ↠ part of the dulce somnii universe.

» SERIES «

— love ain’t a business | S, F, A | best friend’s brother, e2l, fake dating au | ongoing ⤷ agreeing to marry your best friend under the pretense of fooling his parents isn’t really how you envisioned your night to go, especially when you still have some lingering feelings about his older brother.

» ONE SHOTS «

—  just sit pretty [4.1k] | S | threesome, est. rel au | ft. yoongi ⤷ jungkook's hands are wandering all over your body while yoongi is asleep on your couch. can you fulfill your desires without waking him up?

— floored [5.2k] | S | foursome, idol au | ft. jimin & hoseok ⤷ it’s a foursome with jungkook, hoseok, and jimin.

— nock & loaded [3.8k] | S | s2l, olympics au ⤷ you should be resting before your big match at the olympics, but can you say no when those eyes are asking you to practice with him one more time?

— a (small) step forward [2.7k] | S, A | domestic, est. rel. au ⤷ jungkook has been avoiding you lately, but it’s all for a good reason.

— dress down [2.1k] | S | fwb au ⤷ you convince jungkook to take you out shopping

» DRABBLES «

— mirrored [1.2k] | S | est. rel. au ⤷ a drabble about jungkook pushing you against a mirror

— ness-tled in your embrace [1.5k] | S | est. rel. au ⤷ a drabble about one (1) jealous jeon jungkook {written for a friend!}

» SERIES «

— dulce somnii | S | incubus au | ongoing ⤷ a collection of oneshots surrounding seven different demons

— thinly veiled desires | S | bdsm, non-idol au | completed | ❀ ⤷ a series of drabbles featuring sub!ot7 and a gnc, dom!reader

» DRABBLES «

— welcome to the magic shop | S | misc | ongoing ⤷ drabble request compilation!

© lavienjin. all rights reserved.

[pendraegon]

[ID of the poem "ακμων (anvil)" by Matthew Minicucci:

on the left hand side the poem reads:

accusative, of course—direct object / threnody, in the Greek, meek-sounding / loss; smallest piece of the mind’s deep blue / sound here, fettered away in a forge— / I admit my fear of this inevitable loss, / antiphon song, over and over, refrain’s / control—I mourn the incus, anvil in / cudere, beat or strike, which seems right / in the soupy spring of day—nothing / left like a sparkling bit of flecked lead / some new knotty soot, interrupting the / sea just planted, years away from taking root

on the right hand side the poem reads:

of sound’s transitive verb—it’s a dirge, / wail song, or whale song, or some imperfect / soft cleft my grandfather heard nothing of— / he would point to his ear; shake his head— / gloss over the long nights of tinnitus / being unable to regain / the vulgar tongue but actually / there’s so much I’m struck by: simple plans / left in the ear’s spin or dot’s spot lot / dust I’m afraid of—dust like some cusp,  / green carpet suburban summer—tree, yes, / but so impossible to take back now

END ID.]

[mia-japanese-korean]

Bamboo and Poem, Doi Gōga, second half 19th century, Minneapolis Institute of Art: Japanese and Korean Art

knotty bamboo stalks with foliage entering from UR and LR; three line inscription at L Size: 52 15/16 × 26 1/4 in. (134.46 × 66.68 cm) (image) 73 1/8 × 29 15/16 in. (185.74 × 76.04 cm) (mount, without roller) Medium: Ink on paper

https://collections.artsmia.org/art/118024/

[env0writes]

Seven Ember Stories 9.25.22 “No Such Nonsense”

No robins came this year Like nonsense Lewis Carol’s Chittering around the unmowed grass Long, like overdue haircuts With specters, three, Signaling the end of times Too cold and drafty On warmfront wings Updrafted and upcharge Avoidant of the stormclouds wrathe No redbellied messengers Peeling and preening To guide juveniles Through the springtime aisles Down through the knotty, gnarled, wood Where thousands of thickets Barricade pubescence

@env0writes C.Buck (Poem & Photograph) Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artist!

[slippinmickeys]

A Sequel: Amazon Archeologist/Scientist AU, Part 2:

You can read on AO3 here.

1. “How does it feel to have cured cancer?” asked Kathy Lee. Scully couldn’t take her eyes off the rim of the host’s wine glass; it was smeared with lipstick, and the wine contained therein had legs, running down the bell curve of the glass in thin amber stripes.

It was oddly, surreally quiet on the unnaturally blazing stage -- multiple cameras pointing at them, a team of professionals sitting in dead silence in the dark spread out below.

“I only wish I’d done it sooner,” Scully said, going off script a bit. “I think of the people that died while we were still searching, still researching, while the studies were being checked and… I just wish I’d found it sooner.”

The host’s face softened, and she reached forward and put her hand over Scully’s on the arm of the chair where it was resting. She gave it a squeeze and Hoda took over, “Up next, the group BTS is going to sing us their latest single!”

There was a dull bell that rang off to Scully’s right and the stage manager stepped forward, headphones clomped over his ears, his mic slung low around his jaw.

“We’re clear!” he called, “Sixty seconds!”

The show would be cutting to a co-host standing at a stage set-up outside 30 Rockefeller Center. Scully reached up to unhook the mic attached to her lapel, and a trio of sound technicians descended on her. In ten seconds, she was relieved of all equipment, and she was left swaying in the funnel of the Fresnels on the too bright stage.

“You did great,” she heard from her left, and the show’s host winked at her, and retook her hand, leading her to the dim cool just off stage.

She found Mulder standing before her once her eyes adjusted, just outside the reach of the stage lights, looking nervous and out of place, his hands clasped behind his back. He was wearing a turtleneck and a suit coat, looking every inch the tenured professor.

“And who’s this?” Kathie Lee asked, looking at Mulder brightly.

Scully shook herself, trying to remember her manners. It wasn’t always easy, having spent so much time in the field.

“Uh, this is Mulder,” she said, “Dr. Fox Mulder. My, um… my fiancé.”

The television host smiled warmly at Mulder and clasped his hand.

“I’ve heard the story of your meeting,” Kathie Lee said, “It’s a real pleasure.”

“I’m a big Giants fan,” Mulder said, giving her hand a firm shake, “the pleasure’s all mine.”

The host winked at him and then stalked off, and Scully exhaled, falling a little into Mulder’s side.

“I’m glad that’s over,” she said.

“The price you pay for changing the course of human history,” Mulder mumbled, squeezing her into his side and kissing her hairline. He led her off the soundstage and into a waiting limo.

2. It had been a whirlwind since the Nobel Prize Award ceremony in Stockholm. It was cold in Sweden in December — especially to a person who’d spent years in the humid jungles off the beaten paths of the world, and she and Mulder both felt out of place and perpetually in the clasp of a bone-clutching chill.

“I just want to be back in the field,” she’d whisper to him, and he would kiss her hand. With the prize money, they could buy a house, start a family — but they both would rather be in a jungle somewhere, sweating into the other’s skin on a too-narrow cot, in a too-hot clime. There was no science when they were in the cradle of the other’s hips, there was just each other. Sex made life more simple. Sex made life more fun. But sex didn’t cure cancer. Pleurotus Mulderatus did that, and the world wanted to hear about it.

3.She had a free ticket. Any university, any assignment.

“I feel pressure,” she told him, her nose pressed into his ear. “What do you do after you’ve cured cancer?” she asked, earnestly, “there’s nowhere to go but down.”

He’d taken her to Rhode Island, to his family’s cottage in Quonochontaug, creaky and drafty and smelling of mildew and old pine. No one had visited in decades and everything needed to be cleaned and aired out.

They kayaked and frolicked in the waves, drank coffee in adirondack chairs and listened to the pinched squawks of hovering sea birds. They’d find a place in the dune grass, down low where the wind wouldn’t catch them. They’d soak up the sun and then go into the cottage and make love between the knotty pine walls, their moans absorbed by the thick shag carpet laced with the grit of sand, faded drunkards path quilts nailed to the walls.

“Down is a state of mind,” Mulder would murmur into her ear, “Up is fighting gravity. You have nowhere to be but here. You have no one to impress but me.”

He would catch her lips with his own and they would sink into each other gratefully.

4.Mulder was burning pancakes in the kitchen when there was a dull knock on the screen door.

Scully was laughing at Mulder’s culinary ineptitudes when she turned toward the sound, her laugh fading when a well-done-up woman appeared on the stoop, holding her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare, trying to see into the murky depths of the house.

“Are you press?” Scully asked through the screen door glumly, her mood taking a nose dive.

“I’m Samantha,” the woman said, and it took Scully a full five seconds for her synapses to fire, to figure out the identity of the visitor.

“Oh my god,” Scully said, swinging the door open to admit the polished woman waiting on the other side. The door itself was swollen with humidity and didn’t shut all the way -- it caught like there was a second latch. “Come in, come in!”

Samantha had a full head of thick hair just like her brother, but it was curled and tawny, streaks of not-quite-blonde highlights running from the roots. She was wearing Lily Pulitzer pastels, and would have looked at home in a sun hat or on the pages of Coastal Living.

“You must be Dana,” she breathed, smiling widely. Scully nodded and looked around self-consciously. “God, this place hasn’t changed in thirty years,” Samantha finished, shaking her head ruefully. “Where’s Fox?”

“Kitchen,” Scully said, inclining her head toward the cooking space, though she knew Samantha knew right where to go.

“You’re using the cast iron?” Samantha said boldly and apropos of nothing, stepping into the sunny kitchen, “God, I hope you seasoned that thing.”

Mulder’s face brightened at seeing his sister, and he turned to her fully, enveloping her in a hug, a greasy spatula in one hand, held out so as not to soil her clothes.

“Like you can cook,” he drawled, turning back to the smoking pan.

“I know enough to hire a caterer,” she said, plunking down in an olive green vinyl kitchen chair, looking at ease but totally out of place in the dated decor of the cottage. “So. Who do I have to fuck to get a mimosa around here?”

“Me,” said a voice from the entryway. The screen door slammed ineffectually shut and Scully’s own sister Melissa stood awkwardly in the slant of sun showing through it, holding several plastic bags laden with glass bottles and juices, a hopeful, nervous smile on her face.

“Missy?!” Scully squeaked, and Mulder looked to the door, his face chagrined and pleased as Scully launched herself at her sister, wrapping herself in the earthy patchouli smell of the woman, the plastic bags clunking to the floor at their feet.

XxXxXxXxXxX

“I got ordained online,” Melissa said, drinking a Bellini from a yellow smiley-face mug, her feet tucked under her on a rough-hewn dining chair. “It’s perfectly legal.”

“But it’s--” Scully started, then abandoned her argument. She looked to Mulder desperately, who smiled and plunked a cup of hot coffee in front of her.

“It was only an idea,” he said, squeezing her hand and sliding an ancient sugar dish in front of her. The crinkles around his eyes had hardened in the ocean-reflected sun, lending him an air of easy humor she hadn’t witnessed much of in the jungle.

“Don’t you need two witnesses?” she asked, realizing how lame it sounded the second the words were out of her mouth.

Samantha leaned over and grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers in such a way that made her feel bolstered and secure. “Not in Rhode Island,” Mulder’s sister told her, looking her square in the eye.

“We don’t have to do it,” Mulder said, still standing at her side, “but I thought…”

She felt overwhelmed with emotion, thinking of her father, who hadn’t lived long enough to witness her greatest achievement, which would have saved his life.

“Mom sent her wedding dress,” Melissa said, holding up a garment bag -- it was a yellowed ivory in the kitchen sun, the zipper up its middle aged and brittle.

XxXxXxXxXxX

They exchanged vows on the beach in front of the old cottage in a whipping Atlantic wind. Gulls hovered overhead and the sun was as bright as a brass doorknob, the air clearer than glass.

Samantha had read a poem by an amateur poet named Tim Pratt called Scientific Romance (Mulder having confessed to her later that night that it only seemed right to have had a reading replete with scientific notation for a wedding between two people such as themselves). Melissa had read words as old as the institution of marriage itself and they exchanged simple rings and had eyes only for each other. Scully handed her bouquet -- a small posy of wild swamp azalea and yellow flag that Melissa had picked the hour before -- to her new sister in law as she strode up the peeling wooden steps of the house. Mulder had insisted upon carrying her over the threshold and Melissa and Samantha had stood back thoughtfully, and were now sitting closely on the beach, heads bent together, talking in hushed tones.

Scully didn’t know quite what to do with herself, dressed in old lace in the heavy salt air, her left ring finger feeling as heavy and pendulous as an old bell. Mulder wrapped his arms around her from behind and told her they never had to leave.

“Nobel Laureates live in Rhode Island, too, you know,” he whispered into the hair behind her ear.

“Mmm,” she said happily, watching her sister and his dig their feet in the gritty sand.

He kissed the skin where her shoulder met her neck. “Life can be as simple as the state motto.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“Hope.”

5. She stood above the riverbank, the grass a trampled, muddy squelch. A monkey called from overhead, a high primate shriek that echoed through the canopy. Its compatriots soon joined in, the welcoming committee announcing the rare arrival of a visitor.

He sat in the back of the approaching hollowed-out canoe, his knees practically to his neck, the lanky bones of him jutting out at all angles. He wore jeans and chambray, all wrong for the climate, but the blue set off the dark mink of his hair, and his eyes -- as green as the river upon which his boat perched -- caught hers from twenty yards away -- they held her gaze as the craft glided to shore, and he leapt off with the galumphing grace of a power forward.

“Dr. Scully I presume,” he said, finding his balance on the slippery shore and reaching a hand forward. She clasped it gratefully, then brought it to her belly, which was protruding out like a carved fertility statue, a life-sized goddess, gravid and full. “I thank God, doctor, that I have been permitted to see you,” he finished, and they embraced on the shores of the jungle river, perspiring and damp and finally, finally feeling at home.