Posts

Aubade for ADHD by Christie Beckwith

The lavender light weaving through the window screen is a canvas that paints my internal dialogue / my thoughts stampede / fast and loud / a stream / an assault / a (bubbling) stream of merlot thoughts / (stone sober) / pour / GUSH / flow / sofast / theycatchon themselves / relentless noise / who will read this / no one knows / how alone I feel / (I am not screaming) / yet / it is loud in here / the loneliness / the questioning / the tricks I learned / in therapy / to quench the goblins / she’s quiet because it’s hard to STOP / to interrupt the thoughts / to speak / I miss details / rinse repeat / rinse please repeat / yourself / I didn’t hear / no / it’s not that I wasn’t listening / it’s that I didn’t hear you / over the roaring synapses / rushing through my ears / I wish I could just snap /      / and stand / alone / in a white room / full of nothing / maybe / one window for light / and a chair / (a footstool) / in the wholly / sacred / nothing / I wish I could think / happy thoughts / and lift off the ground / light as Tinkerbell / but there are twelve church bells / ringing in a tower / (God’s temple) / and I can’t reach the top / to turn / off / the Bruno Mars lyrics / this is a portrait / of a woman / on a crowded street / between a crosswalk / and a hard place / my twin bed / (a soft place) / with a three inch egg crate topper / I want to be steeped in a dream / where I float / or fly / I hear normal people don’t think / in color / don’t picture what they think / that sometimes they hear nothing / a mind with nothing / must be boring / must be calm / I joke / to pretend / joke / that I don’t need relief / that it’s either take the drugs / that would make a normal brain / see through walls / fist bump a train / at full speed / the speed is what calms me / down / fuck a normal / resting heartrate / it is good to meet me / (medicated) I am pissed / at four decades of / what if you just / why don’t you just / why can’t you just

CHRISTIE BECKWITH is an author, poet, and freelance editor at Meraki Press. More importantly, she is a sparkle girlie and an excessive consumer of Dunkin’s coffee. You can find her at open mics and all over the US, where she travels for her day job doing Alzheimer’s research. She wants to live everywhere she visits, but is always happy to return to Massachusetts, where she loves her four boy humans, the cat, and their two dogs.

Love it?

Christie has two pieces in Vol.6. To read the other piece and listen to Christie’s voice in the audiobook, purchase a copy below or consider subscribing to support Anodyne Magazine and its contributors. We pay our contributors dividends for each purchase! Plus, this is the only place you’ll find an ebook + print subscription combo.

Try A Subcription Purchase Vol.6

The “Hoax” Underneath my Scars by Brittany Micka-Foos

The twin scars on my abdomen form a cross. Both lines are vestiges of unexpected medical interventions. First scar (horizontal): an emergency c-section. Four years later, a mysterious lump appeared two inches below my belly button. Cancer scare, surgical extraction, my second scar (vertical).

I’ve learned scars can take two forms: physical or emotional. These too intersect. The physical is often easier to contend with. It leaves a mark — this is proof of something. The things that happen to you, that cause you pain, and do not leave physical scars are often more difficult to put into words. For years, I felt I could not adequately convey how I continued to be haunted by those two medical encounters. Taylor Swift’s “Hoax,” however, helped me find my voice. The song expresses both the physical and emotional components of trauma, weaving them together in a narrative of complexity and nuance.

Taylor Swift released her surprise album Folklore in July of 2020. In inimitable Taylor Swift fashion, the album recalls a bygone era — conjuring up images of a romantic English countryside or perhaps a 1950s gymnasium — while also simultaneously speaking right to the particular heart of the COVID pandemic. Folklore straddles two worlds, past and present. It is both escapist and confrontational, a contradiction. Beautiful and tragic. And it never ceases to amaze me how Swift can write about a specific pinpoint of an experience and make it seem somehow universally relatable.

Cue “Hoax,” the culminating song of the standard version of Folklore. In the documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Taylor Swift says that “Hoax” embodies the sweeping themes of the album as a whole: “Confessions, incorporating nature, emotional volatility and ambiguity at the same time … love that isn’t just easy.” “Hoax” is broad and even nebulous in its scope. The song, Swift explains, blends “several different, very fractured situations…” She pulls those disparate situations together and creates a narrative that reads like a prism, refracting out in a multitude of directions. “Hoax” is fascinating in part because it can be interpreted so expansively, with many different layers.

As much as its title evokes nineteenth-century archeological forgeries or P.T. Barnum’s Fiji mermaid, “Hoax” also functions as a lens for the modern FOX / Trump era of fake news. And is a fitting song for my situation in 2021.

[continued in the magazine]

BRITTANY MICKA-FOOS is the author of the short story collection It’s No Fun Anymore (Apprentice House Press, 2025) and the chapbook a litany of words as fragile as window glass (Bottlecap Press, 2024). Her work has been published in Ninth Letter, Witness Magazine, Epiphany, and elsewhere. Read more at www.brittanymickafoos.com

Love it?

Brittany is the featured writer in Vol.6. To read the full piece, purchase a copy below or consider subscribing to support Anodyne Magazine and its contributors. We pay our contributors dividends for each purchase! Plus, this is the only place you’ll find an ebook + print subscription combo.

Try A Subcription Purchase Vol.6