Author: M Téllez
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HEAT DEATH OF WESTERN HUMAN ARROGANCE
TRANSITIONAL TIMES TRANSITIONAL BODY by M Téllez She turned to me with half-lidded eyes, her mouth turned upward like a cat’s face. Her hands rested on the worn wooden surface beneath her congregation of plants. We needed nothing to see with, just the full moon’s cool blue cast. The slopes and lines of her shoulder…
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A Crossroads Dilemma
“Who’s that?” “That’s my mom and dad right before they had me.” “I’m really into how they’re taped to the wall like that. All the pictures, I mean.” Kay hummed a polite nod, eyes sweeping over the wall’s haphazard cluster of photo prints and found scraps of collage art. It was an odd feeling to…
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About A Woman and A Kid
An older woman came to town. By town I mean our little dark forest, which is on the disconnected part of the city—the other side of the river where the power’s broken up anymore. She came in the morning when we were out pulling weeds and foraging along the creek banks. She had a lot…
FILE: one-shots
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Ghost in the Shell and Body Crisis
My 2015 visit on episode 04 of illustrator/essayist/critic/badass Annie Mok‘s Lights Go Down movie discussion podcast. Sci-fi writer M Téllez of Metropolarity Collective (who is also my housemate) joins me to talk about a movie they’re an expert in, the 1995 Mamoru Oshii anime of Masamune Shiro’s manga, Ghost in the Shell. Music is from…
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The Sermon
Here there was a severe humidity. A sullen, dank overcast. A grey world with the drowsy, thick air of a labyrinth. It saturated the skin with an uncomfortable grime that, left alone, would blotch the skin and stick resting eyes shut. Kay couldn’t remember what this kind of environment felt like for a person without…
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Adolescence
How my heart used to race at the sound of a dial-up connection The beige clack of keyboard. An adolescent body perched on a greasy dining room chair The glow of a desktop screen, resolution 800 x 600. This is where I grew up, in an invisible universe, now imploded. When I was…
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REMEMBER LIFE OUTSIDE THE IVORY TOWER
DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE BEFORE YOU UNDERSTOOD HOW TO COMMUNICATE IN ACADEMIA? DO YOU REMEMBER HOW TO SPEAK IN COMMON? DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU HEARD A NARRATIVE THAT DID NOT ALSO PROVE AN ARGUMENT? REMEMBER LIFE OUTSIDE THE IVORY TOWER. REMEMBER THE REST OF THE WORLD.
FILE: spells
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GENTRY
Y’all are some fools—I can’t stand this shit. I’m yelling and gnashing my teeth and screeching at them in modified Common to pay attention. But these gentry don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. You know that? Then they get robbed and laughed at and their goddamn feelings hurt cause they wanna talk to…
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ODE TO ROCK LEE
IF YOU PRESUME THAT I DON’T ENGAGE IN CERTAIN ACTIVITIES WITHOUT EVER FOR A SECOND CONSIDERING THAT THE REASON MIGHT BE FINANCIAL THEN I’M LETTING YOU KNOW YOU’RE PULLING SOME LIL UPPER CLASS BULLSHIT IF YOU THINK THAT I DON’T LIKE SOMETHING THAT I DON’T WANT TO DO SOMETHING THAT I CAN’T THAT IT MUST…
FILE: essays
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PEOPLE WHO WRITE ABOUT THE 90S INTERNET AND HOW CYBERSPACE WAS THIS CRAZY SPACE BACK IN THE DAY
OK I WANT TO KNOW I REALLY WANT TO KNOW DID THEY ACTUALLY LIVE IT? WERE THEY IN THOSE CYBERSPACES? WERE THEY THOSE PRE/TEENS ACTING AS VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS AS VAMPIRE VERSIONS OF THEIR FAVORITE DRAGON BALL Z CHARACTER, ROLE PLAYING AT ELITE CHATROOM POOLS WITH DEPRESSED BOYS N GIRLS LIVING IN IRL ISOLATION? THE…
FILE: essays
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The Corpse
Suli blew his sterile load onto the ground (it happened at the same moment every time) and then straightened up, wiping his hand across a gnarled clump of weeds as the reconstructed reality cleared from his vision and the dull rolling hills of low mountain country returned. Braga would be here soon. The two of…
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My Other Body is In the Shop
ALL THAT'S LEFT | First Packet by M Téllez Not everyone is good at their body. I know mine’s fucked up. The joints are out of alignment and the energy deposits are unevenly distributed. Nothing fits right lately and people been staring at me when I walk around the hood, like yo is he gonna…