Congratulations to for having his following short story chosen for publication on . The essay that follows is a truly wonderful exploration of authenticity and narrative time. Please read the follow conversation between us at and to understand more about the writer and the context for this brilliant short story.

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Writer Spotlight: Ryan

is from Northwest Indiana, USA, and has been writing for around thirty years.

What was it (if anything) that made you start writing?

Way back in middle school, I started processing depression and feelings of isolation through poetry (not that it was all that good-- it just got me through things).

What experiences have you had that have shaped the writer you are today?

In high school, a close friend once told me, “Ryan, you’re either going to be a philosopher or dead.” So (fearing the latter more than the former) I went to college as a philosophy major. I read through heavy, academic expository texts all the time. I thought I wanted to be an academic philosopher. But then, reading Sarte, I found that fiction could capture ideas in a much more communicative form. So, I went on to get a Master’s in literature (specifically apocalyptic literature). Having found that I majored in unemployment, I became a teacher with Teach from America. Then I spent a decade not writing, as a writing teacher. I went back to school for my second master’s and EDD. I have found writing my dissertation to be so lifeless and sterile that I’ve had to start writing fiction again out of spite and a vague desire to keep my soul alive.

What genres are you writing at the moment? What genres do you enjoy writing?

I am writing doctoral level research (which is what it is); random, unsolicited inspirational emails to my school staff; and, when everything falls in line and I have a moment to breathe, squeezing a moment or two to write fiction, the only one I desperately want to do, every waking moment.

What inspires you to write? Where do you take your inspiration from?

As an academic researcher, I am studying GenAI, trying to understand the effects it is having on K-12 education. That makes me think a lot about authenticity and systems. And I think about the people in those systems. And that makes me want to write fiction because mumbling nonsensical gibberish while one holds himself tightly is generally reserved for other matters more pressing than existential dread, at least in a middle school teacher.

What does your writing process look like (e.g., environment, tools, setting, etc)?

I have ADHD so hyper focus is a tool I have at my disposal. That's not a throw away line, I wrote Double Slit in a marathon writing session, dragging my Toughbook to my and my kids' karate classes, to work, to the waiting room for my wife's shoulder surgery. It's just a singular mindedness that is as useful as it is dangerous.
My main process mission in writing fiction right now is subtractive. I'm trying to remove everything that the reader can do for themselves-- trusting the reader to understand is the hardest part of writing, so we write flowery descriptions and narrate every leaf on a tree as they blow in the breeze. I used to think of writing fiction as painting with a brush of words. I now think of as chiseling away everything that isn't whatever I'm trying to say.

What do you envisage when you are writing something new? Are you writing with the intention of sharing your work, or are you simply writing to write, for example?

As someone who has spent a lot of time with the high ideas of philosophy, I am usually writing towards a theme. I try to avoid moralizing, because readers know as much about what is right as I do. I try to lay bare some nerve I feel pulsing through the world and hope the reader sees some semblance of their truth through my narrative gaze.
But, then again, that's just me trying to intellectualise the fabric of me screaming into a page and hoping someone, anyone feels the same sense of dread about what we have built up for people to live through. My greatest fear is that I am so inept and (sometimes) jaded, that the sincerity of my writing does not come through.

Why do you think community is important for writers and creative people?

I have never been deeply connected to a community of writers. I feel I have missed out on something. Interested people with some ability to empathise with the doubt and fear and moments of brilliance and serendipity.
I have that in my school community. I have been teaching in the same community for nearly 20 years. I have the children of my students in my classes. Being a part of that community, in some small way, keeps me grounded in humanity. I work with children to develop shared values and ideals, which pull us all forward and helps us do amazing things.
I have not had many times when I felt that same sense of community with a group of writers (though I have had great friendships with singular writers). I would be far more prolific.

Where do you currently share you work?

I am currently sharing on Substack and Medium. I’ve stopped using most other social media.

Why did you submit your work to ? What drew you to our publication?

I’m new to Substack. I saw a posting about Blank Canvas Post, looked through the guidelines and history and thought it would be a positive way to put myself out there. It’s basically the first submission I’ve made in twenty years.

About the Short Story: Double Slit.

Regarding ‘Double Slit’, what inspired you to write this piece?

Double Slit is about authenticity and the systems we force people though. Institutions and patronage. It's about what those systems do to artists and who decides intention and vision in artistic works. We really only scratch the surface of each other, in the end.
It is actually part of a larger series I am writing set in the same fictional university. "Cultured" and "The Tao of Bullshido" are other pieces in this "Controlled Studies" series. Their connection is thematic rather than character-based.

What, if any, is the context for this piece? What is the main feeling or message behind it?

Earlier, I talked about applying a chisel to my writing rather than brush. Don’t do that with people. Don’t presume to understand. Don’t let the crushing weight of institutions and bureaucracies drain the life from the authentic and humane.

What was the process of writing this piece like for you? What did the process look like?

I’m described this a bit above, but let me just say, there was an overwhelming sense of urgency involved. From my academic studies I know we are a point of vast social change brought about by the intellectual automation AI promises. If we aren’t careful (and why as a species would we suddenly start being careful now) that is going to build a bureaucracy of boilerplate that might just crush everything it touches.

Why did you choose to submit this piece specifically to ?

I want to find the type of readers drawn to the types of pieces Blank Canvas Post appeals to. I have a hard drive full of false starts and “great ideas” from the last twenty years, but what is any of it worth if it is never seen?

Without further ado, here is the short story, Double Slit, by .

Double Slit, by Ryan.

A Short Story.

The skin of her thigh, just under the hem of her skirt, sticks to the folding chair beneath her. It is slightly too low for her height, leaving her knees angled higher than she would prefer. Her hands rest in her lap, manicured nails sealed under thick black polish. The chair sits too far from the table for her to place her hands there comfortably, but the gesture would feel wrong anyway.

She is still. Her lips purse without her noticing.

The long table in front of her is pale laminate flecked with gold. Scuffed and worn from decades of elbows and dragged portfolios, it dips slightly in the center. Three faculty members sit behind it with folders open. Her name is printed in block letters on a sheet of paper propped in a plastic stand. One corner curls faintly in the air stirred by a ceiling fan that clicks with each rotation.

Nothing has begun yet.

The room hums and clicks.

The fluorescent bulbs above them give off a faint electrical whine. They flicker briefly, then steady. It is the only sign of the storm outside.

Beyond the thick walls, wind presses against the Brutalist building without effect. At the edge of campus, trees bend and recover, bend and recover, their branches striking one another with a sound like distant steps on wooden planks.

Her portfolio rests on the table between them. Closed.

She keeps her eyes on it, not on the faculty panel.

The lights flicker again. One professor glances up, distracted for a second.

A stack of papers lifts and settles, lifts and settles with the draft of the clicking fan. She imagines, not for the first time, what the room would look like if the lights went out. …

An hour earlier, the wind had pressed against her as she crossed the quad, portfolio held tight to her chest beneath her coat. Leaves skittered in frantic arcs across the pavement, scraping against her boots. The trees that had seemed picturesque when she arrived in August now looked feral, their trunks flexing, their crowns tangled in the gray sky.

She moved through them without slowing; her chin angled down, eyes low. The campus forest is curated. The paths are mulched and edged. Benches angled toward scenic clearings. Small plaques name each species in Latin. It is a forest designed to be known.

The wind stripped it of its order. Unseen branches snapped somewhere deep in the canopy. A limb scraped against the side of a granite building with a hollow, percussive knock.

She adjusted her grip on the portfolio as a gust slammed it against her ribs. For a moment she imagined it slipping from her hands and scattering across the wet grass, prints lifting into the air like startled birds.

She tightened her hold and kept walking.

A cluster of students wound toward the dining hall, laughing. They leaned into each other against the wind. Skirts lifted; hands pressed them back down.

No one looked at her. No one needed her to look at them.

At the edge of the quad, she paused just long enough to look back at the trees. Their branches crossed and uncrossed in violent arcs, lines splitting and converging against the sky.

She turned toward the art building.

…

The hum of the fluorescent bulbs swells, then falters. One flickers harder, a brief stutter of light that leaves a greenish afterimage in her vision.

When it steadies again, everything is red.

The safelight in the darkroom stains everything in a muted, surreal, but familiar crimson glow. The air smells of developer and metal and a faint sweetness. Trays line the counter, liquid surfaces trembling slightly as someone opens a door down the hall.

She stands over the first tray, tongs in hand, watching paper float in the shallow bath. The image has begun to surface but refuses to resolve: a shoulder, the curve of an arm, the suggestion of another body leaning in.

She leans closer.

Two thin white lines run through the print, narrow and almost perfectly parallel. They cut the frame from top to bottom, brighter than the rest of the image. She frowns, thinking first of dust on the negative, then of a misaligned carrier in the enlarger.

She lifts her head and glances at the machine, its black metal body looming above the counter. The bulb inside had flickered earlier when she switched it on. She had noticed a brief dimming, a hum, but ignored it.

She looks back down at the tray.

The rest of the image continues to darken, forms emerging from milkiness into gray. The two white lines remain stubbornly bright, cutting through flesh and shadow alike.

She considers pulling the paper early, starting again. Reclean the negative. Realign the carrier. Adjust the aperture. She knows how to correct this. She has corrected worse.

But she does not reach for the tongs.

There is something about the interruption that holds her. The lines divide the frame without separating it. They split the bodies without pulling them apart.

She tells herself she is only curious. She imagines a hand hovering over the print, a finger pausing at the white lines.

She lets the image continue to develop.

…

In the critique room, one of the professors opens her portfolio at last.

The first print slides across the laminate table, face up.

Under the fluorescent lights, the image is sharp. The blacks are deep and uncompromising. The whites are stark.

The two vertical lines are unmistakable.

A hand pauses above the print, hovering just long enough to mark it as the first object of interest. “Before we begin,” the professor says, voice measured, “this complicates your body of work.”

She keeps her hands folded in her lap. Her thumb presses into the crescent of polish at the base of her nail.

Outside, the wind strikes the building again, and for a moment the fluorescent bulbs tremble in sympathy. …

In the darkroom, she lifts the finished print from the final tray and sets it on the drying rack. The red light makes the bodies softer than they are, edges dissolving into shadow. The two white lines glow faintly, almost pink under the safelight, less intrusive than before.

She steps back.

In this light, the image still feels open. The figures are entwined but not exposed. The lines could be anything: cracks in a wall, shafts of light through blinds, an accident of chemistry that will disappear once fixed.

She reaches up and turns off the safelight.

The overhead bulb clicks on with a sterile brightness.

The image changes immediately.

The bodies sharpen. The tension in their hands is visible now. The lines are no longer suggestions but divisions, clean and undeniable.

She inhales.

For the first time, she sees how someone else might see it.

Not as intimacy. Not as study. Not as bodies finding one another.

As something else.

She feels the urge to start over rise again, stronger now. It would take an hour. Maybe two. She could eliminate the lines. Restore the smoothness of the frame. Make it easier to read.

Her hand hovers near the rack.

She lowers it.

She leaves the print where it is.

…

In the critique room, the professor’s finger taps lightly beside one of the white lines. “Is this intentional?” he asks.

The hum above them deepens, almost imperceptibly.

She looks at the print between them, at the interruption she chose not to correct.

For a moment, she sees it as she did in the red light: uncertain. Almost tender.

The fluorescent glare flattens it.

Outside, the wind continues to bend the trees at the edge of campus, branches crossing and recrossing against a sky the color of undeveloped paper.

“Is this intentional?” Less a repeat than time skipping like a record.

The word lands clean and clinical.

Intent.

She thinks of the thrift store, the glass case streaked with fingerprints. The camera had been wedged between a broken camcorder and a tangle of yellowed cords. It looked heavier than the rest of the junk. Solid. Black. Like something that mattered.

They hadn’t even gone in for it.

They’d gone in because the bell above the door rang too loud and one of the girls liked to make it ring again and again until the cashier shouted. The store smelled like dust and old wool. Someone was arguing about the price of a lamp with a cracked base.

“Bet you won’t,” someone had said, not looking at her—just loud enough.

She was new. The friend of Lila’s cousin. Still being sized up.

The camera was right there. The clerk’s back was turned. Her hand moved before she had time to think about whether she wanted it.

It was colder than she expected.

She slid it into the pocket of her jacket and felt its weight drag at the seam as they spilled back out into the street.

They ran.

Not because anyone had noticed. Just because running made it real.

Laughter broke apart in the wind. Someone shoved her shoulder hard enough to sting. Someone else grabbed her hand for balance at the corner and didn’t let go for a few steps too long.

The city pressed in close around them. Bricks sweated from last night’s rain. Sirens wailed somewhere distant. A bottle shattered against pavement. Two people were already shouting across the street, voices sharp and uncontained. It could tip into a fight. It might not. It didn’t matter.

Her pulse felt louder than the city.

She didn’t care about the camera. Not yet.

She cared that when they slowed, when they ducked into the alley behind the laundromat, someone clapped her on the back and said, “Damn.”

She cared that no one looked at her like she didn’t belong.

…

Time’s record skips again. “Is this intentional?” the professor asks for the first time, but again. In the critique room, the air is flat. Conditioned. Neutral.

She looks at the print between them.

The scholarship letter had not used the word intent. It had used words like vision. Voice. Promise. It described her photographs as if they had always meant something clean.

She had taken the first picture because someone dared her to try the flash.

Lila had leaned back against a chain-link fence, vape between her fingers, eyes narrowed against the light. Another girl had draped herself over Lila’s shoulders from behind, chin resting in the hollow of her collarbone. They had been laughing at something she can’t remember now.

The flash went off too bright.

They blinked.

And then they were looking at her differently.

“Do it again,” someone said.

She did.

…

Across the table, a finger rests beside one of the white lines in the print.

“We’re trying to understand what this is doing.”

Doing.

She hadn’t understood what the camera was doing either. Only that when she lifted it, people turned toward her. They stilled. They leaned in. They let her close.

The group had been louder than sense. Sirens. Arguments. A grocery cart overturned in the street. Someone crying hard enough to draw a crowd that didn’t know whether to help or watch.

She had photographed it all without knowing to think about composition. The chaos trapped through her lens created its own order.

Because it was hers.

Because no one else was keeping it.

…

The lights flicker as the professor exhales. “The committee needs to ensure you’re moving in a sustainable direction.”

“Purposeful progress,” adds another.

The third, turning to the first, says, “Honestly, I blame the equipment. Everything in that room is older than she is. The whole world has gone digital. Jim, that space could be better utilized as…”

Professor Jim—she had never considered that he had a first name—silences the discussion with a small wave of his hand.

“We can have that larger discussion later. What’s at hand,” he gestures to the print, “is whether the committee believes this…” He flips through the other prints. “Actually—whether any of these represent the trust’s organizational mission and values.”

…

The floorboards above her basement bed clicked rhythmically, then the motion stopped. Motes of dust hung in the air, illuminated by passing headlights. Heavy and uneven footfalls crossed the floor above her.

She stood on the bed, pointing the lens through the tiny window above. She waited, framing the image like she had read in a library book. When the john stepped into frame, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, she pressed the shutter. She advanced the film. Again.

“He’d kill you if he ever saw you do that.”

She spins. Caught again.

“Candi, I…”

Candi is silhouetted at the top of the steep stairs leading up from the basement.

“I know, kid. You got an eye.” Her voice carries a smile. “Come on up. Eat.”

…

“I didn’t know the trust’s values were the ones my work needed to represent.”

Professor Jim turns his head slightly. These are the first words she’s said.

His smile shows teeth but no warmth.

“Of course, your voice is of value here,” he says. “In your work.”

The professor to his left says, “The question is whether that voice is commensurate with the trust’s vision statement.”

“Which is?”

The third professor turns to a page in a binder. He slides it to her.

The paragraph is precise and empty.

She reaches out, controlling the pulse of nerves that should have made her hands shake. Her black-polished nail rests on a single word.

“Authentic.”

The lights flicker.

Then go out.

Then on again.

Professor Jim places a finger on the white-lined print, lips taut over his teeth.

He presses his finger into the paper.

“Is banding your aesthetic?”

She bites her tongue. She does not taste blood.

…

Blood. Pooling. Almost black.

It spread slowly across the kitchen linoleum, following the grooves between tiles. Her mother’s hand lay open beside it, palm up. The television was still on. A game show audience laughed at something no one in the room had said.

The seams where tiles met: two thin white lines cutting through the dark.

She had not screamed.

Candi had. Not loud. Just once.

Candi’s arms swept around her shoulders, turning her away.

“Fuck,” she hissed, pressing her face into her shoulder. “Don’t look.”

Later, people asked questions. What she had seen. What she remembered. Candi answered most of them. Candi called her “niece” to make it simple. The others called themselves “aunties” and brought food wrapped in foil.

She learned where to rest her eyes.

…

Back in the critique room, the fluorescent light hums.

Professor Jim waits.

“Is banding your aesthetic?”

She does not see the blood. She sees the lines.

Banding?

“You mean the lines.”

…

There is a small pause. Not confusion. Calculation.

“Yes,” Professor Jim says evenly. “The banding.”

“It disrupts the composition,” the professor to his left adds. “Your earlier work had a clarity this lacks.”

“Clarity,” the third says, flipping through the portfolio. “The arrest image, for example. That was disciplined. Socially coherent.”

She does not correct the word.

Arrest.

The squad car’s back door had been open, interior light casting a rectangle onto the pavement. He had stood inside it as if stepping onto a stage.

Someone had given him a paper crown. It sat crooked over his ears. He kept touching it, making sure it hadn’t fallen.

The women lined the curb, arms folded tight against themselves, then unfolding, then lifting in slow, uncertain waves. Lipstick smudged. Mascara damp but not running.

Two officers stood close enough to look casual.

The cake box was still open on the hood of the cruiser. Frosting already sinking into the cardboard. “He seemed unaware,” the professor says. “That’s what made it powerful. The irony.” Unaware.

He had known he was going somewhere warm.

They had told him they were going to play a game. Take a ride. He would get to sit up front if he behaved. He would get cake again tomorrow.

“Mama” had been gone three days. He kept asking when she would wake up.

The officers had not taken the money. It wasn’t needed.

They had taken him instead.

“It captured systemic failure,” someone says. “The way the community normalized it.” Normalized.

She remembers the way the women stood between him and the wind while the cuffs clicked closed. One of them reached up to straighten the paper crown before he ducked into the car.

He was smiling.

The door shut.

The light went out.

In the critique room, the fluorescent bulbs hum.

Professor Jim taps the corner of the white-lined print.

“That was authentic,” he says.

She looks at the image.

Imperceptibly, her back straightens.

She sees the lines.

…

In the darkroom, the enlarger had been set too low.

The cone of light narrowed against the plate, concentrated into a hard circle. Too tight. Too precise. She had noticed it.

If she lifted the head, the light would spread. Soften. Blur the interruption.

She had not lifted it.

The timer had clicked.

The light had flared once, bright and absolute.

Then it was gone.

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Congratulations to Fari - - for having their following literary fiction piece chosen for publication on . The fiction piece that follows is a truly wonderful exploration of introspection and self-destruction. Please read the follow conversation between us at and to understand more about the writer and the context for this brilliant fiction piece.

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Writer Spotlight: Fari.

Originally from Pakistan, growing up in Saudia, has used writing for catharsis since childhood. Over the last four years, they have shifted their focus, translating their raw thoughts and unresolved feelings into more structured poetry and literary forms.

What was it, if anything, that made you start writing?

It actually started in 2nd standard. I had an incredible English teacher who pushed me to explore my creative side, and that’s where my love for stories began. Later on, when I dealt with a lot of anxiety and depression that felt impossible to explain to the people around me, writing became my anchor, it was the only way I could sort myself out. I immersed myself in classic literature to understand the world better, and my ‘ramblings’ eventually turned into structured poetry. For a long time, social anxiety kept my work hidden, but recently I decided I wanted to be productive and have something to be proud of. I finally started sharing my writing, starting with my sister, and I’m finally open to feedback.

What experiences have you had that have shaped the writer you are today?

What shaped me most was the experience of being surrounded by people who loved me, but who fundamentally couldn't understand my struggle with anxiety and depression. Because of their backgrounds, those things were just 'concepts' to them, not a reality. Being diagnosed was a humbling and isolating experience because I realized that even with a supportive crowd, I was essentially on my own in navigating my mental health.

​I started writing because I needed to make sense of what was happening to me. I didn't want to become someone who didn't understand. Writing became the only 'person' I could truly talk to, especially since social anxiety makes it so hard to build new friendships. It’s evolved from a survival tool into a way to make sure that through my poetry and literature, someone else out there might feel seen the way I didn't.

What genres are you writing at the moment? What genres do you enjoy writing?

I write across the boundaries of confessional poetry, psychological prose, and contemporary gothic literature. My work explores the anatomy of isolation, specifically the experience of being ‘loved but not seen’ and the ways mental health shapes one’s perception of time and the body. I utilize vivid, often visceral imagery to bridge the gap between internal ‘ramblings’ and structured literary exploration, focusing on themes of inheritance, memory, and the terror of beauty.

What inspires you to write? Where do you take your inspiration from?

My inspiration is largely opportunistic and observational. I tend to pull from whatever is in my immediate line of sight or hearing, a striking lyric, a fragment of dialogue from a stranger, or even a random passing sight. I’m fascinated by how a single quote or an intriguing subject can act as a catalyst for a much deeper internal exploration. To me, writing is the process of taking those external sparks and ‘aligning’ them with my own feelings and opinions to see what kind of truth comes out.

What does your writing process look like (e.g., environment, tools, setting)?

My process is rooted in atmospheric consistency. I always start by finding a specific song that captures the exact emotional frequency of what I’m trying to express, and I’ll keep that single track on repeat for the entire duration of the session. This creates a sensory loop that anchors me to the feeling and prevents my mind from wandering.

​As for my environment, I prefer solitude and low light, usually a dimmed room where I don’t feel the pressure of the outside world. I allow the initial draft to be a raw, unfiltered 'flow' of whatever comes to mind. Once the emotion is captured, I shift into a more analytical mode to refine the language, ensuring the structure and alignment reflect the original intent. My tools are simple: a pen and journal are my preference for the tactile connection they provide, but I’m always ready to capture a sudden spark on my phone if inspiration strikes while I’m on the move.

What do you envisage when you are writing something new? Are you writing with the intention of sharing your work, or are you simply writing to write?

When I begin a new piece, I envisage a space of absolute honesty, a place where the feelings that were dismissed as mere 'concepts' in my daily life can exist in their full, heavy reality. For a long time, I wrote with no intention of sharing. I wrote to survive, to anchor myself during bouts of anxiety, and to create a record of my own existence when I felt alienated to the much known surroundings. I was writing to 'sort myself out' and to build the understanding I wasn't receiving from my environment.
​
However, my intention has evolved. I realised that keeping my work hidden was a symptom of the very social anxiety I was trying to navigate. Now, I write with a dual purpose: I still write to process the 'unresolved,' but I also write with the intentional goal of being productive and seen. I want to create something I can finally be proud of a tangible piece of literature that stands as proof of my growth.

​I envisage a reader who, like me, might feel 'that humans their feelings and what they can do are too vast to be left unexplored.' I write to bridge that gap, turning my private 'ramblings' into an aligned format so that my internal world can finally meet the external one. I’m no longer just writing to exist; I’m writing to communicate.

Why do you think community is important for writers and creative people?

A creative community provides a mirror that we can’t provide for ourselves. When we are too close to our own work, we only see the 'messed up' parts or the 'ramblings.' A community helps us see the beauty and the structure in our own chaos. It gives us something to be proud of. Without that feedback, it's easy to stay stuck in a loop of self-doubt; with it, we find the courage to refine our craft and actually 'align' our thoughts into something professional.Community acts as a bridge. It’s the difference between writing to survive and writing to connect. When I finally shared my work with my sister and saw her reaction, it changed my perspective, I realized that my 'internal ramblings' could actually resonate with another human being. Community turns a private anchor into a collective lifeline.

I remember when I finally shared my work with my sister and saw her reaction, it changed my perspective, I realised that my 'internal ramblings' could actually resonate with another human being. Community turns a private anchor into a collective lifeline.

Where do you currently share you writing?

Currently, my primary home for my writing is Substack, where I enjoy the intimacy of connecting directly with readers. I have also had the privilege of being published in a literary magazine, which was a significant step in my journey toward sharing my work more broadly. While I previously explored Medium, I soon realised the platform didn’t quite align with the tone and direction of my work. I’m now focused on spaces that prioritise depth and a more personal, ‘aligned’ literary format.

Why did you submit your work to ? What drew you to our publication?

I submitted to Blank Canvas Post because I felt a strong alignment between my style and the publication’s aesthetic. My work focuses on the themes of isolation and the anatomy of feelings that are often hard to name, and I’ve found that Blank Canvas Post provides a platform for exactly that kind of ‘internal’ storytelling. I wanted to share my work with an audience that appreciates the beauty in the struggle of becoming oneself.

About the piece: Threadbare.

Regarding Threadbare, what inspired you to write this piece?

The inspiration for THREADBARE was sparked by a singular, haunting quote by the poet Anna Akhmatova in her poem called The Sentence: 'I have a lot of work to do today; I need to slaughter memory, turn my living soul to stone, then teach myself to live again.'

That line resonated with me on a visceral level because it perfectly captured the 'labor' of my own life. I’ve spent so much time using writing to navigate a world that didn't understand my mental health, and Akhmatova’s words gave me a framework for that struggle. I wanted to expand on that 'work' to explore the actual, messy, and often violent process of dismantling a pained past to make room for a future. The piece became an exploration of what it looks like to actually 'slaughter' those ghosts and the quiet, defiant act of teaching oneself to finally enjoy the sun and something as simple as a cup of coffee again.

What, if any, is the context for this piece? What is the main feeling or message behind it?

The core feeling of the piece is radical, exhausted agency. It begins with the feeling of being haunted and 'threadbare', worn down by memories and a body that feels 'borrowed.'
​However, the message isn't one of defeat. It’s about the realisation that if the world won't see your pain, you must be the one to 'slaughter' the ghosts and 'stitch' a new self together. It’s the transition from being a victim of your own mind to being the architect of your own peace. The final message is one of hard-won hope: that after the 'slaughter' of a thousand internal ghosts, you can finally earn the right to simply exist, to taste your coffee, feel the sun, and wake up without an apology for being alive.

What was the process of writing this piece like for you? What did this process look like?

The process of writing THREADBARE was unlike anything I’ve experienced before. It felt less like 'writing' and more like a physical act of extraction; with every sentence, it felt as if I were ripping away pieces of my old self to see what lay beneath.

​Usually, I am very focused on structure and 'aligning' my thoughts, but this piece demanded a different approach. I wrote it in a singular, relentless flow, refusing to take breaks because I didn't want to lose the intensity of the emotion. I stayed inside the 'fever' of the poem until the very last word was down.

​When I finally finished, I felt a profound sense of pride. I realised this piece was a significant 'step up' from my previous work, it moved beyond simply words and became a structured, visceral piece of almost myself. It was the moment I felt yes this is it.

Without further ado, here is Threadbare by .

Threadbare by Fari.

Morning arrives without mercy. I wake with a ledger of ghosts pressing against my ribs, teeth clenched around names I am no longer allowed to speak. My hands are already bloody, though I do not remember lifting the knife. It almost makes me want to cry. Memory gnaws at me like vermin trapped inside the walls of my skull, and I know that if I hesitate, it will consume me, yet a pulse persists, faint, stubborn, alive.

But I have work to do today. Work that demands a steady hand and an unflinching heart. Today I must be cruel. I must crack open my own chest and salt the inside so nothing tender dares to grow again. I have to gut remembrance, turn my warm, begging soul to stone, and set it somewhere no one can touch it, so it never tastes the warmth of hands not my own. Yet there’s a tremor, a flicker that refuses to be consumed. So soft, it almost seems a mistake of sight.

Today, I must petrify my living soul mid pulse, destroy it before it starts to fuel the broken bridges my mind has begun to rebuild, even as my eyes sting with unwelcome moisture. I must dismantle the shattered pieces of my spectre, the one that once swore never to be cast out. I have to burn the threads running through my body before they start pumping forsaken crimson again, blood that feels too foreign to be mine.

There’s a strange warmth in the morning today. It settles against my skin, eerily soft, as if the day is offering me a gentle farewell, considerate, almost tender toward my aching being. The rays catch in my eyes and make me look almost existent, almost alive, and so I turn away from them. Today I do not need pity. I need a strong hand, one that does not hesitate, one that pushes me toward the sea.

I must reach the shore today, sail the ship, and cast away the ashes of my incinerated nerves, so they never reach another core to torment. Only then can I grieve my soul with a smile, waving the hazy destructiveness away.

I woke with a strange devotion to slaughter bound to my being. A craving for ruin. A sickening will to carve myself inside out beneath the hazy sunlight peeking through my curtains. Crows caw relentlessly, dismantling what little mortal euphoria remained. Four perch by my window, watching, alive. Four for birth, I remember. Almost as if they know the ritual before I do.

I want to drown the past in gasoline that refuses to settle, strike the match myself, and watch it burn in the mirror. I want to witness my being fracture until it no longer recognises its own reflection. Then gather the ashes. Stitch them into a body too unfamiliar to ache. A body that learns only what it chooses. Smiles when it pleases. Sings without devastation.

In the morning, I slip beneath the water, letting venom-laced echoes cradle me instead of sweet nothings. I hold my breath through infinity, cataloging the vivid shards slicing through vision. My eyes remain bare, letting insight bleed in and out, rinsing what must not linger. One by one, the tight buttons of old attachments unthread, and I rise, lighter, untethered, afloat.

By evening, I must book myself a grave, dug by my bare hands, clawing until no trace of skin remains, only raw, glistening red. I have to feel the pain so these unclaimed hands never dare to reach out again toward the hopeless shadows carved by threaded light.

I must make it eighteen feet deep, so by the time I reach the bottom I am nothing but grotesque meat, too mangled to scream for rescue, too ruined to ever be retrieved. And yet, even there, at the marrow of ruin, there will be a tremor, a pulse that does not turn into silence.

It will stir beneath the wreckage, fragile and absurd, and begin to thread itself through the hollowed spaces of what I once was. From the rot, something new must gather, something that does not ache the same, does not bleed in the same way.

Before that, I must move through the day half translucent, a ghost threading warped edges. Every sound stretches.

Every touch arrives too late...

I hear people articulate and feel their words peel away, useless and unbinding, slipping through me like a misty haze. I relearn the choreography of the living. When to nod. When to swallow. When to pretend the burning has ceased. How to perform existence as if I were released, a marionette undone yet never deceased.

I drift through hours collecting fragments of speech that crumble between my fingers. Movements rehearsed. Expressions opaque. Every step a rehearsal. Every glance a quiet surrender for the play I am curating. I am present and yet absent, stitched to the living with invisible veins. Only darkness promises release, but I must wait for the sun to withdraw before I can begin sewing myself again.

I made a vow yesterday... a promise to gather myself again, forget the mortal delusions, the need to become something that aches, to rise with the sun, embrace its grace, let it touch my skin for the warmth I traced. Let the stars align as I lay in solace, look in the mirror with a new admiration for drifting haze.

There is a moment when the body forgets its vows. When breath settles. When the pulse steadies. When something like peace grazes the surface. I crush it immediately. Mercy is a weed. If left unattended, it roots. I cannot afford softness while memory still knows my name, at least not before I have gained my aid.

So, tonight I will drag myself to the dug grave and leap in so my bones can fray. I need to be completely in pieces when I let myself drift away so that by morning I am incapable of holding the threads of memory still trapped in frame. I must open my replaced eyes to the dew and not crave the strain I carried the day before. I have to wake again in a stitched up body, too deformed to be desired by unwilling hands again, too beautiful for me to allow such constrain.

Tomorrow I wake with a lotus in my hand. Sunlight spills across the floor. Eleven crows gather at the window. Eleven for hope. I wake with a smile whose origin I do not question. I take a warm bath. I pour a cup of coffee with ice exactly as I like it. I taste it fully. I let the sun rest against my skin. This time, I do not turn away.

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