Incursion
Artwork by Rachel Coyne
“I was trying to create tension and drama among the abstract forms. I like also the way the abstract plays with size - the images could be microscopic worlds, flower parts or as large as galaxies.”
Rachel Coyne is a writer and painter from Lindstrom, Minnesota.
@Imrachelcoyne (Instagram)
@Imrachelcoyne (Twitter)
@Imrachelcoyne (Instagram)
@Imrachelcoyne (Twitter)
Dancing with Angels
Non-fiction by Odi Welter
CW: Violence, Disturbing Content, Risky Behavior, Mental Health, Death, Abuse, Sexual Assault
My mother says she saw angels dancing in her front yard when she was a child. She danced with them, her bare feet trapped in the grass while they pirouetted on the wind. Her father came outside to watch.
Then the storm came. Sudden, wild, violent.
Demons formed out of the shadows of rain. Swords of darkness slashed at the angels. The angels stopped dancing to fight, their swords blazing with white fire. My mother stopped dancing to scream.
Her father grabbed her shoulders, forced her to face the battle raging above her. He told her to call on Jesus, that his name gave her voice power. She threw it against the storm like arrows.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away!
And they went away. The demons, the storm, and the angels.
My mother went inside and ate dinner. Broccoli chicken hotdish.
My mother tells me that I scared off a demon. That I always hated the basement of the house I can’t remember in more than fragments. I remember it as skeletal and dusty, like a tomb waiting for a body. I remember the translucent blue yoga ball I was never allowed to play with after I rolled it down the stairs and broke a picture frame. I remember the satisfying sound it made as it bounced. I remember the light had to be turned on by pulling a string, that I was always afraid she would pull too hard and it would shatter, spilling electricity onto our feet. I remember when she was pumping for my brother, she’d store the breast milk in the basement freezer. I remember I begged her for a taste because it seemed to me that my brother had everything but a working heart, and even that seemed like a blessing if it made him a miracle and me a shadow. I remember she gave it to me to prove that I would hate it. I remember hating it.
I don’t remember the demon.
My mother says she took me down with her to grab something, something she can’t remember anymore. She says that I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, my eyes locked unblinking on the window set close to the wood-boned ceiling. She says that I pointed and screamed, and that when she looked, the window was completely black, darker than night.
My mother says that she grabbed my shoulders and forced me to face the demon trying to break in. She says that she told me to call on Jesus, that his name gave my voice power. She says that I threw it against the demon like arrows.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away!
My mother tells me that the demon went away. That we went upstairs and ate dinner. Chickpea à la king.
I never told her, but I always feared that it went into me.
That my name and hell are synonymous. That the demon couldn’t tell the difference and became as caged in my mind as I am. That the darkness, like a blanket around my heart, felt close enough to home that the demon made it that.
It was a strange sort of comforting to believe that things about me my mother hated yet never saw could be purged by something as simple as a name.
The demon built a castle at the top of my spine while my mother kept searching for angels in the garden.
Gay marriage became legal everywhere, and my mother screamed that it was an abomination while yanking weeds from her pepper patch. Gay became a word in my vocabulary, and I prayed that it wasn’t an adjective of mine while the spines on cucumber vines sent hives up my arms. My prayers morphed into shovels, and I buried the adjective in the tips of my fingers.
A boy in my high school choir was openly trans, and my mother called him she as her tongue bled on a cross and her hands applauded my solo. Trans became a scribble in my notebook, and I erased it as my soul cleaved in half and my voice shattered glass. Purple split into blue and pink, and I hid the blue half of myself under my tongue.
A book I can’t remember the title of had an autistic character who was my reflection, and my mother promised I wasn’t broken just different when I asked her why. I clenched my jaw against asking why she thought autistic and broken were synonymous until my teeth cracked. I filled the gaps with the self-diagnosis until no one could see it.
A health teacher mentioned asexuality in passing, and my mother praised her termination while dumping scraps to her chickens. Asexuality sat in my search history, and I promised myself that I was just waiting for the right person while I scraped chicken shit from my shoes. My promises turned into scrap metal, and I fashioned a sex drive to clog the way to my uterus.
My mother’s cousin committed suicide, and my mother told me she didn’t understand why as she planted pansies in a pot. Four attempts haunted my past and four more waited in my future, but I bit my tongue and helped her fill the hole. Death half-attempted became seeds, and I buried them with the pansies.
A high school friend complained about his ADHD, and my mother said drugs were a cage while pawning over herbs pressed into pill form. His troubles nearly mirrored my own, and I convinced myself the differences were too obvious as I swallowed placebo. The letters jumbled, and I shoved them up my nose to cover the scent.
Our church hosted a seminar educating on sex trafficking, and my mother warned me to be careful of men while the youth pastor’s son slid his hand up my thigh. He whispered that God had been telling him we were meant to be together since we were ten and ignored my please, don’t for the first time. I shut my mouth and listened for my own promise from God, and I twisted the silence I got in response into iron bars I thought were armor.
My mother told me stories about angels and demons, about the invisible war between good and evil. I drifted further and further into the gray. The stories I read, music I listened to, questions I asked all dripped with more violence than she knew what to do with. The first story I had her read, excited that it had won a contest, was about a girl who believes she’s a monster. She dies in the end, sacrifices herself in an attempt to redeem her mistakes. My mother asked if she needed to be worried I was going to burn the house down.
The demon mined for precious minerals in my bones, and my mother prayed for the angels to dance with her again.
My first friend in college was a “raging homosexual loudmouth,” and I loved her for it while my mother begged me not to let college change me. I rewrote my definition of “gay,” and proudly called it an adjective of mine while promising my mother nothing would change me. I dug the word out of my fingertips, and it spread through the rest of me.
I borrowed a friend’s chest binder for the first time, and I thought my chest would burst from the joy while my mother said she missed her sweet little girl. I scribbled gender-fluid in my notebook like a crush’s name, and my soul slowly melded back together. I pulled the blue half from under my tongue and chewed it together with the pink until it was purple again.
A friend asked if I’d ever been diagnosed with autism while calling my quirks adorable in the same breath while my mother swears there’s nothing wrong with me. I let the mask crack and fall, revealing not broken pieces, but something beautiful underneath.
I told a friend I didn’t want to have sex, and she asked if I might be asexual while my mother asked if I’d met anyone yet. I kissed a boy and hated the thought of doing anything else, and I let myself say I didn’t want more. I pulled the faux sex drive out of my vagina and refashioned it into dragon wings.
A friend admitted that she’d attempted suicide, and I told my story that sounded like hers, while my mother asked me to tell her if anything was wrong. I dug up the seeds of death half-attempted and baked bread with them.
A psychologist diagnosed me with ADHD and autism, and I stopped asking if differences made me alien while my mother promised that I was normal. The sneeze locked in my nose finally came loose, and I fit the letters back together.
A friend and I swapped stories about sexual assault, and I allowed myself to believe myself while my mother told me that I couldn’t let myself be a victim. I called the pastor’s son an abuser instead of a best friend, and I melted the cage bars into a sword.
I explore the castle the demon built and realize the hands that shaped it were mine.
My mother looks beautiful while she dances with angels.
Then the storm came. Sudden, wild, violent.
Demons formed out of the shadows of rain. Swords of darkness slashed at the angels. The angels stopped dancing to fight, their swords blazing with white fire. My mother stopped dancing to scream.
Her father grabbed her shoulders, forced her to face the battle raging above her. He told her to call on Jesus, that his name gave her voice power. She threw it against the storm like arrows.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away!
And they went away. The demons, the storm, and the angels.
My mother went inside and ate dinner. Broccoli chicken hotdish.
My mother tells me that I scared off a demon. That I always hated the basement of the house I can’t remember in more than fragments. I remember it as skeletal and dusty, like a tomb waiting for a body. I remember the translucent blue yoga ball I was never allowed to play with after I rolled it down the stairs and broke a picture frame. I remember the satisfying sound it made as it bounced. I remember the light had to be turned on by pulling a string, that I was always afraid she would pull too hard and it would shatter, spilling electricity onto our feet. I remember when she was pumping for my brother, she’d store the breast milk in the basement freezer. I remember I begged her for a taste because it seemed to me that my brother had everything but a working heart, and even that seemed like a blessing if it made him a miracle and me a shadow. I remember she gave it to me to prove that I would hate it. I remember hating it.
I don’t remember the demon.
My mother says she took me down with her to grab something, something she can’t remember anymore. She says that I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, my eyes locked unblinking on the window set close to the wood-boned ceiling. She says that I pointed and screamed, and that when she looked, the window was completely black, darker than night.
My mother says that she grabbed my shoulders and forced me to face the demon trying to break in. She says that she told me to call on Jesus, that his name gave my voice power. She says that I threw it against the demon like arrows.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away.
In Jesus’s name, go away!
My mother tells me that the demon went away. That we went upstairs and ate dinner. Chickpea à la king.
I never told her, but I always feared that it went into me.
That my name and hell are synonymous. That the demon couldn’t tell the difference and became as caged in my mind as I am. That the darkness, like a blanket around my heart, felt close enough to home that the demon made it that.
It was a strange sort of comforting to believe that things about me my mother hated yet never saw could be purged by something as simple as a name.
The demon built a castle at the top of my spine while my mother kept searching for angels in the garden.
Gay marriage became legal everywhere, and my mother screamed that it was an abomination while yanking weeds from her pepper patch. Gay became a word in my vocabulary, and I prayed that it wasn’t an adjective of mine while the spines on cucumber vines sent hives up my arms. My prayers morphed into shovels, and I buried the adjective in the tips of my fingers.
A boy in my high school choir was openly trans, and my mother called him she as her tongue bled on a cross and her hands applauded my solo. Trans became a scribble in my notebook, and I erased it as my soul cleaved in half and my voice shattered glass. Purple split into blue and pink, and I hid the blue half of myself under my tongue.
A book I can’t remember the title of had an autistic character who was my reflection, and my mother promised I wasn’t broken just different when I asked her why. I clenched my jaw against asking why she thought autistic and broken were synonymous until my teeth cracked. I filled the gaps with the self-diagnosis until no one could see it.
A health teacher mentioned asexuality in passing, and my mother praised her termination while dumping scraps to her chickens. Asexuality sat in my search history, and I promised myself that I was just waiting for the right person while I scraped chicken shit from my shoes. My promises turned into scrap metal, and I fashioned a sex drive to clog the way to my uterus.
My mother’s cousin committed suicide, and my mother told me she didn’t understand why as she planted pansies in a pot. Four attempts haunted my past and four more waited in my future, but I bit my tongue and helped her fill the hole. Death half-attempted became seeds, and I buried them with the pansies.
A high school friend complained about his ADHD, and my mother said drugs were a cage while pawning over herbs pressed into pill form. His troubles nearly mirrored my own, and I convinced myself the differences were too obvious as I swallowed placebo. The letters jumbled, and I shoved them up my nose to cover the scent.
Our church hosted a seminar educating on sex trafficking, and my mother warned me to be careful of men while the youth pastor’s son slid his hand up my thigh. He whispered that God had been telling him we were meant to be together since we were ten and ignored my please, don’t for the first time. I shut my mouth and listened for my own promise from God, and I twisted the silence I got in response into iron bars I thought were armor.
My mother told me stories about angels and demons, about the invisible war between good and evil. I drifted further and further into the gray. The stories I read, music I listened to, questions I asked all dripped with more violence than she knew what to do with. The first story I had her read, excited that it had won a contest, was about a girl who believes she’s a monster. She dies in the end, sacrifices herself in an attempt to redeem her mistakes. My mother asked if she needed to be worried I was going to burn the house down.
The demon mined for precious minerals in my bones, and my mother prayed for the angels to dance with her again.
My first friend in college was a “raging homosexual loudmouth,” and I loved her for it while my mother begged me not to let college change me. I rewrote my definition of “gay,” and proudly called it an adjective of mine while promising my mother nothing would change me. I dug the word out of my fingertips, and it spread through the rest of me.
I borrowed a friend’s chest binder for the first time, and I thought my chest would burst from the joy while my mother said she missed her sweet little girl. I scribbled gender-fluid in my notebook like a crush’s name, and my soul slowly melded back together. I pulled the blue half from under my tongue and chewed it together with the pink until it was purple again.
A friend asked if I’d ever been diagnosed with autism while calling my quirks adorable in the same breath while my mother swears there’s nothing wrong with me. I let the mask crack and fall, revealing not broken pieces, but something beautiful underneath.
I told a friend I didn’t want to have sex, and she asked if I might be asexual while my mother asked if I’d met anyone yet. I kissed a boy and hated the thought of doing anything else, and I let myself say I didn’t want more. I pulled the faux sex drive out of my vagina and refashioned it into dragon wings.
A friend admitted that she’d attempted suicide, and I told my story that sounded like hers, while my mother asked me to tell her if anything was wrong. I dug up the seeds of death half-attempted and baked bread with them.
A psychologist diagnosed me with ADHD and autism, and I stopped asking if differences made me alien while my mother promised that I was normal. The sneeze locked in my nose finally came loose, and I fit the letters back together.
A friend and I swapped stories about sexual assault, and I allowed myself to believe myself while my mother told me that I couldn’t let myself be a victim. I called the pastor’s son an abuser instead of a best friend, and I melted the cage bars into a sword.
I explore the castle the demon built and realize the hands that shaped it were mine.
My mother looks beautiful while she dances with angels.
Odi Welter is a queer, neurodivergent author currently studying Film and Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. When not writing, they are indulging in their borderline unhealthy obsessions with fairy tales, marine life, superheroes, and botany.
@o.d.i.welter (Instagram)
@o.d.i.welter (Instagram)
