HSM

"Preparing [for the role of Nikki] was really fun. We got to watch a lot of fun movies, and kind of pick and choose, like a puzzle, what we wanted in the film. Moments that we took inspiration from, and made them our own." — Inde Navarrette for Fandango "We watched Get Out, and focused on a lot of the moments where characters are showing an emotion underneath but saying something completely different [on the surface], and how horrific that is. There's a scene where [Nikki] is saying, "no", and there is a [similar] scene in Get Out [which we took inspiration from]." — Inde Navarrette for A Shot Magazine Obsession (2026) Dir. Curry Barker Get Out (2017) Dir. Jordan Peele

Moments where the real Nikki breaks through the wish OBSESSION (2026) Dir. Curry Barker

I MET EVERY VERSION OF MYSELF AT THE HOSPITAL

I met every version of myself beneath fluorescent lights. They were all wearing the same paper bracelet, which felt insulting. As if a name and a date of birth could keep us from becoming each other. As if identity were not just a clerical error the body keeps correcting.

The child arrived first. She still believed adults became good when they became sorry. She carried a drawing of a house with smoke coming from the chimney, though I could not tell whether that meant warmth or warning. I asked why she gave the house so many windows. She said, so someone will see me.

The teenager sat farthest from the door. All eyeliner, bitten nails, and emergency exits. She had already learned that pain becomes embarrassing when it lasts longer than other people’s sympathy. She called me a sellout for surviving. I called her dramatic, which was cruel, because drama was the only language anyone noticed her speaking.

Then came the woman who almost died.

She did not look wise. Near-death had not made her luminous. She was wearing hospital socks and holding a paper cup of medication like the world’s smallest surrender. When I asked what she had learned, she said, Nothing. It hurt.

That frightened me more than any revelation could have.

I had been counting on meaning to arrive retroactively. I thought one day the worst things would organize themselves into a staircase and I would climb them toward the person I was always supposed to become. Instead, they remained what they were: broken boards, rusted nails, pieces of a structure nobody had finished building.

More versions entered. The liar. The daughter. The teacher. The patient. The artist who turns blood into language and then worries she has made it look too beautiful. The future self I invented to survive the present stood beside a version of me who had done everything right and was still unhappy.

We began arguing over who was real.

The child said the first version.

The teenager said the most wounded.

The artist said whichever one could make the suffering useful.

The body, from somewhere beneath all of us, said nothing. It just kept the heart moving from room to room.

Maybe identity is not a soul. Maybe it is a waiting room full of strangers answering to the same mispronounced name. Some are called before they are ready. Some leave before the doctor arrives. Some have been dead for years and still complain about the magazines.

When the nurse finally opened the door, every version of me stood.

That is the terrible part.

Every version believed she was the patient.

Every version believed the others were symptoms.

The nurse looked at the chart, then looked at us. Which one of you is Corinne?

Nobody answered.

Not because we did not know.

Because we all did.

The child took my hand. The teenager rolled her eyes and took the other. The woman who almost died held the door open.

We walked through together, which sounds like healing if you end the story there.

I do not.

I FIRED GOD FOR POOR PERFORMANCE

I called God into my office on Monday.

He was late.

Of course He was late. This is a man who invented waiting rooms, unanswered prayers, and the exact three minutes between hearing the phone ring and learning who died.

I asked Him to sit.

He said He was already everywhere.

I said that kind of attitude is why we’re having this meeting.

I slid the evidence across the desk: childhood cancer, mass graves, hurricanes, fathers disappearing into concrete buildings, mothers teaching their daughters to mistake fear for respect. I included mosquitoes because cruelty does not become cute just because it is small.

God glanced at the paperwork and said something about free will.

I said a tornado does not have free will.

He said something about a larger plan.

I asked how large a plan has to become before the people inside it stop counting.

He looked tired then. Older than light. Less like a king and more like an exhausted surgeon standing over a body that would not stop becoming another body.

For one dangerous second, I felt sorry for Him.

Then I remembered the children.

I told God His position had been terminated effective immediately. No severance. No worship. Security would escort Him beyond the limits of the observable universe.

He asked who would replace Him.

I said nobody.

The room became very quiet.

Not peaceful. Peace is quiet with consent. This was the quiet after a gun jams. The quiet of realizing the monster under the bed was load-bearing.

Without God, there was no one to blame for the blood except the hand. No divine script. No mysterious reason. No heaven laundering horror into purpose. Just us—soft animals with excellent vocabularies, building machines to make suffering happen faster.

I had wanted freedom.

What I got was jurisdiction.

Suddenly every hungry person was on my desk. Every war had my number. Every stranger I ignored became a prayer addressed directly to me.

I called after God.

He had not moved.

Maybe because He is merciful.

Maybe because I had forgotten He was everywhere.

I offered Him His job back with reduced authority. No floods. No tests. No asking terrified people to call terror faith.

He smiled like a wound learning to speak.

He said, You still think this is my office.

Then He placed the keys in my hand.

They were warm.

They were wet.

Outside, the world continued making victims and weather.

I wanted to pray.

Hiiiii i just launched this poetry platform c: I want to make learning how to write poetry approachable and accessible to people who want a low pressure way to go about practicing writing poems.

I use a Constraints Led Approach to learning poetry. There is very little lecturing, there are no assignments or required* reading lists, the idea instead is to meet writers where they're at and start building upon their practice from there! There are Live and pre-recorded courses that will be available starting next week<3

Free tier available will have resources for those who want to follow along with the lesson plans c:

wip