Photo by Karim Manjra
Deception
The bell rings.
Everyone leaves.
Immaculate white floors stained by drips of paint along the walls,
bright yellow.
Through the open window, the piercing sound of a siren
competes with three thunderous gongs from the church across as
she walks down the hall.
The girl holds the blade in her left hand, leaning against the stall.
Examines it carefully.
Is it still sharp enough?
She executes precision cuts on her right calf,
just below the knee, just enough to sprout blood.
“I’m wicked,” she chants.
With each cut she wishes to release:
Pain,
Loneliness,
Grief.
Yet she doesn’t know
how deep
she cuts into her soul,
drip by drip,
until there’s no turning back.
Self-mutilation had poisoned her...
First Published by The Scarlet Leaf Review, March 2020.
The Author
E. Izabelle Cassandra Alexander was born and raised in a little village in Hungary. After immigrating to the US, she first lived in New York. There she graduated with honors from Monroe College with a Bachelor’s in Information Systems before moving to Chicago, where she earned her MBA in Business from Webster University.
In 2013, Izabelle refocused to pursue her life-long dream of writing and began taking writing classes at Oakton Community College and online. Since then, she’s a member of numerous writing and poetry groups, attending workshops and conferences, continuously updating her writing and editing skills. She’s a single mother, nature and animal lover. Izabelle writes short stories, creative nonfiction essays, flash fiction, plays, and poetry. Also, she’s currently working on a few novels and a series of children’s books along with illustrations.
Publications
Several of her fiction, creative nonfiction essays, and poetry have been published by Oakton Community College in 2016, 2018, and 2019 issues of their annual print literary journal, Spark, as well as by The Scarlet Leaf Review on their website in 2018 and in their March 2020 issue. By the Illinois State Poetry Society (ISPS) on their website in 2017, 2018, and in the ISPS print anthology, Distilled Lives, Volume 4, 2018. Also, in Yearning to Breathe, a print anthology by Moonstone Art Center, 2019. By WOW! Women on Writing, 2019 & 2020, in The Book Smuggler’s Den, 2019, by Tint Journal, 2020, in Ariel's Dream Literary Journal, 2020, forthcoming by Ariel Publishing on their site in 2020, and more.
Honorable Mentions, Runner Up, and Finalist
She won Runner Up status with her flash fiction “Fragments of Bones” in a contest by WOW! Women on Writing in 2019, and with her creative nonfiction essay "Why I Hate Yellow Peas" in April 2020. An interview was published by WOW in The Muffin on January 14, 2020 and another one forthcoming in May. Her creative nonfiction essays “Disciplined Discipline” (2017) and “My First Camel Ride” (2019), and her flash fiction “Invisible Love” (2018), “Drowning Under Pressure” (2020), and “Yellow Carnations” (2020) each received an Honorable Mention in contests by WOW! Women on Writing while they chose many of her flash and creative nonfiction pieces as finalists.
In The New York City Midnight Challenge Flash Fiction Contest, she won the first round within her tier with her flash fiction titled “What Eyes Can’t See” in 2018. Several of her poems, fiction, creative nonfiction essays, and plays had been selected by Oakton Community College over the last six years as a finalist to represent them in the annual Skyway Competitions (eight community colleges competing).
To Reach Her
You can find Izabelle on her website: izabelle2012.wixsite.com/Izabelle
Connect with her on Facebook: fb.me/E.IzabelleAlexander and Twitter.com/IzabelleAlexan3
Support her work on Patreon at www.patreon.com/IzabelleAlexander
E. Izabelle Cassandra Alexander, IL