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Archive VIII – Apr-Nov 2024
Archive VII – Jan-Apr 2024
Archive VI – Sept-Dec 2023
Archive V – Apr-Sept 2023
Archive IV – Jan-Apr 2023
Archive III – Oct-Dec 2022
Archive II – Aug-Oct 2022
Archive I – Jul-Aug 2022
There’s a folder that catches all my edits, all the pieces that didn’t fit, all my murdered darlings.
Poor metaphors, repeated words, unnecessary exposition and repeated words call it home.
Every now and then I peek inside to see if I can create something new.#vss365 #create
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) April 13, 2023
When Bud woke up he was on a tightrope, fifty feet up, without a net. Instinct and reflex kicked in… one foot in front of the other, minimal movement in his core.
The crowd oohed and ahhed and Bud vowed never to go drink for drink with the strongman again.#vss365 #minimal
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) April 3, 2023
When the Moonrail launched we were all excited; regular, easy access to the moon meant a stepping stone for us to explore the rest of our galaxy.
Now, fifty years in, the moon is just filled up with all the waste we could no longer fit here on Earth.#vss365 #waste
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) March 29, 2023
In the end it wasn’t entertainers, politicians, religious leaders or any other pedestal people we’d created; in the end God asked Sal, a busker in a Lisbon cafe, who they should save.
Sal got on an airplane for the first time in his life to go and find the answer.#vss365 #save
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) March 28, 2023
It came from the sea, the giant tongue. As big as an ocean liner, it slithered through the port and made its way downtown. Bullets were no use.
It eventually returned to the water and we wondered what might have sent it and what it had liked the taste of most.#vss365 #taste
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) March 24, 2023
Yes, one of the rare times you’ll see me dabble in poetry on here and it’s straight to the toilet humour.
Thank you for not unfollowing me.#vss365 #poetry https://t.co/m7LZuz8PsY
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) March 21, 2023
The old cobbler grew depressed and once again turned to the bottle, breaking a 40 year promise to himself.
At first it was a blessing – the elves making the shoes for him at night – but without the work the days grew long and his mind idle. He wished they’d leave.#vss365 #work
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) March 16, 2023
Why do we whisper?
Because the lungfish will take our words and drip them into the ears of the hungry malacor who covets us. Because the doehawk will lift them into the wind where the raixe would catch our scent.
We whisper because we’re alone, hunted by all.#vss365 #whisper
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) March 6, 2023
I think my thoughts and they escape from my ears and I capture the mist in a mason jar. The shelf is lined with them, my thoughts, the jars, and I try not to think as I am running out of jars,
For now we’re safe, but what will happen when they can’t be contained?#vss365 #safe
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) March 2, 2023
He remembered every word he had ever said or read, every conversation, everything he’d experienced.
Knowing the complete context of every moment, every cause before and effect after, made it impossible to cherish any of them. None stood out.
It was all noise.#vss365 #cherish
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 28, 2023
My first funeral in 10 years, same place, same oil paintings, same stench of stale potpourri.
So young. Why the open casket?
I inhale the sadness in the room until it flows through my veins; a feeding that will keep me whole for at least another decade.#vss365 #potpourri
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 26, 2023
Calm, peaceful, serene, the distant echo of a loon; moonlight dancing on the ripples.
She lets my hand go. “I have a secret.” She peels back the skin on her cheek revealing grey scales and says, “I’m one of them.”
My heart leaps, for I have a secret of my own.#vss365 #distant
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 24, 2023
“No offence,” said Phrop, “but we’d prefer if you didn’t join us.”
“It’s not that you’re annoying,” added Paralepsis, “it’s just we have some catching up to do.”
Adverb looked at them silently, a tear in his eye, watching as they ran off on a tangent.#vss365 #tangent
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 22, 2023
The empty lot was not empty; overnight there was now a run-down old bungalow, boards on the windows, wind chimes on the front porch.
I showed a picture to my Granddad who said it was the old Sutherland place that had disappeared in 1968.
He’d been expecting it.#vss365 #place
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 18, 2023
Cam had sworn he’d put the easel away, but there it was in the centre of the room; brushes prepped, drop cloth laid. They wanted him to paint again.
Whatever he created always came to be and he was sick of the responsibility. Nothing ever ended up as he intended.#vss365 #easel
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 16, 2023
She had played daytime TV’s most popular vixen for 30 years; how many sick days had he spent watching her vamp from the couch?
Sam dabbed at her lips with the wet sponge. The monitor beeped.
Barring tragedy, we all end up here, he thought, or somewhere like it.#vss365 #vixen
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 14, 2023
The door banged again. Wind howling, snow piling up on the panes; tales of windigo swept through my mind.
My family slept, I cradled my axe. That was no man at my cabin door. I saw through its mimicry. I sensed its hunger.
It called out. My knuckles whitened.#vss365 #mimicry
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 9, 2023
It’s a tickle in the throat only but call in sick today. I’ll do the same. Let’s bring all the blankets and turn the couch into a bed and I’ll order us lunch from that Thai place you loved. Phones off, just us, we’ll hibernate from the world.#vss365 #hibernate #Mondays
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) February 6, 2023
It wasn’t until my 7th birthday that the Shadow Man spoke.
“Happy birthday,” he whispered from where the wall met the ceiling above my bed.
“Thanks,” I whispered back.
We’ve had the same exchange every year since and, these days, he lives in the pantry.#vss365 #shadow
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 27, 2023
May 1983 St. Louis.
That’s all it says on the back of the photo. No names of who all these people with my father were or why they were all together.
He looks happy in this moment, martini in hand, everyone laughing, and I wish he were here to tell me the story.#vss365 #moment
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 25, 2023
At my late Aunt’s apartment, I opened the cage to set her beloved dove free but it stayed and only shifted on its perch.
She had cared for Sherman so well and had given him every comfort that the poor thing had forgotten he had ever been caged in the first place.#vss365 #dove
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 21, 2023
The best job in Hell is managing the Lost and Found. All the good things in life just appeared on the shelves with every new arrival.
Scott didn’t like telling people he didn’t have what they sought, but he did enjoy his nightly rummage once his shift was done.#vss365 #lost
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 19, 2023
It’s weird when you see a teacher outside of class, isn’t it? Like in the parking lot or at the grocery store or digging a shallow grave in the woods next to men holding guns.
It’s like, wow, you shop here too and you clearly like Greek yogurt.#vss365 #class
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 16, 2023
The cosmic eye is now starting to close again and everything in existence that at one point expanded is now receding.
We don’t know how long it will take for the eye to close, but when it does, the entire history of our universe will disappear with its blink.#vss365 #history
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 12, 2023
Hold your young close. Teach them, coddle them, make them feel safe. Give them reason to fight for this place. The wasteland is no place for the young but we will one day need to rely on them.
Let them know there are monsters, but that they bleed, just like us.#vss365 #coddle
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 3, 2023
I looked into his palm and saw the tiny grain of sand glinting in the light of his eyes. I watched him hurl it into the night sky, dark as pitch, and a star appeared.
He grabbed a handful of sand, winked then threw it up with all his might and the cosmos appeared.#vss365 #hurl
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 2, 2023
The fingers slide back underneath the crack in the kitchen floor tiles just as my mother runs into the room.
I am crying, hyperventilating, and even when I get my words out she does not believe me, does not believe there is a man in the floor.#vss365 #crack
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) January 1, 2023