Moccasin Millennial: Recent Episodes
Brianna G. Reed
Brianna G. Reed is the Diné author of several short fiction and nonfiction essays that have previously appeared in Leonardo Fine Arts Magazine and TCJ Student. Raised in a military family in Hope Mills, North Carolina, she now studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she spends her time running among the reeds of the bosque river, searching for poetry along the water.
“I carry the ghosts of five finals beneath my eyes, and I have no extra bandwidth left for graduation, family, or posing. Still, I am excited…”
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The post Hey Mama appeared first on TCJ Student.
“When I first opened the newspaper and unfolded your smile stretched serenely above your name, I remembered how you first came to me; seemingly a death doula, a mother, to guide me through loss. . .”
The post Rose Painted Palms appeared first on TCJ Student.
“Doctors never saw it on x-rays quite the same way the healers had. Instead, nurses pawed at my abdomen, mistook it as nothing more than blood-clots. I’m so sorry, they whispered…”
The post Of Blood and Baskets appeared first on TCJ Student.
“A shadow in the door, his fingers curled around my cellphone. His eyes widened at seeing me in the ER . . . He took a step forward, hesitating before pulling away…”
The post Vigil for Life appeared first on TCJ Student.
“I’d arrived to campus that first time wind-tattered, make-up smeared by an hour’s worth of sweat. My wrist ached from nursing the clutch around curves, hazard-level winds pushing me to the edge…”
The post Headfirst into Crosswinds appeared first on TCJ Student.
“He could see the highway in my eyes, the black-tar sinking like tidepools in the corners. I sagged into the couch and sighed into the steam…”
The post A Drop of Caldo appeared first on TCJ Student.
“I would walk, trash bags twisted onto my ankles to shield against snow melt, until I could rest against the bark, flick through songs, and watch as my breath drifted to the shivering leaves…”
The post Seedlings from a Fallen Maple appeared first on TCJ Student.
“I heard it first before I saw it: a haphazard tapping, urgent as a whisper, against the window…”
The post Hidden Among the Lavender appeared first on TCJ Student.
“No one told me I was always meant to lose her. To this day, I wonder why they did it…”
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The post The Knife-Edge of Holly appeared first on TCJ Student.
“When those eyes flash from yards away, a sickly yellow, there is no time to breathe, to think…”
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The post Headlight Eyes appeared first on TCJ Student.
“I shrank my life to a box so often it became normal. So, when I saw how the University of North Dakota hid entire boxes of artifacts, a small, strange part of me no longer felt alone…”
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The post Still, the Boxes Follow appeared first on TCJ Student.
“When you meet the other version of yourself standing across from you someday, you will know, immediately, all the ways in which you will tutor her in a sudden crash-course.”Read more ›
“How do you explain that after so much time spent wanting, you’ve numbed yourself against constant rejection? That my indigeneity should’ve never been dangled like a carrot on a stick?”Read more ›
“How do you tell someone oh, it’s not that your mom threatened to stab me, did you know the state is going up in flames?”Read more ›
“In one moment, we’d gone from a maze of Zoom grids fiddling with mute buttons and spotty Wi-Fi, to feeling the same Santa Fe breeze together…”Read more ›
“They saw your curlicue tail, ever-wispy and bouncing with each trot, and laughed. Your chihuahuas will never make it with those dogs runnin’ round…”Read more ›
“In the crushing quiet of a campus under quarantine, I’d been starving for sound all along…”Read more ›
Because I’d been so busy recounting all that went wrong, I didn’t realize we were in their midst until we were submerged at their core, waiting for them to be seen…Read more ›
“She and I were bookends, shelving one another’s histories into place so the other wouldn’t fall…”Read more ›
“For each question about a new Navajo word, your mother would chortle and wave you off. Wannabe she’d hiss, exasperated, her hands hiding a grin…”Read more ›
“Grief met me there, at the footbridge of the hotel where she’d brought her corn maidens towering to life under her fingertips, where they stood even now, waiting in the moonglow with open arms…”Read more ›
Together we listened to your gloved fists cutting the air in quick swishes, each hit thudding into me…Read more ›
I waved and, for an instant, something like sadness flashed in your eyes. Your grin faltered and you stared back into the blinding sunlight, revving your engine…Read more ›
"You were awestruck the moment he truly saw you, an untethered balloon, fighting against crosswinds and carelessness, and still nursing your flame back to life..."Read more ›
“We could hear the squealing churn of van tires slicked with mud and adrenaline, carving deep into deserts soaked with rain…”Read more ›