Essay

Scan is to skim or examine closely.

Feb 4 • Shannon Ratliff

We used to think life could be coaxed if you assembled the right materials and watched closely enough.

Jan 29 • Shannon Ratliff

The Creature of the Face

The world embeds its signals, no matter the species.

Dec 10, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

The serpent doesn’t circle you. It circles all of it.

Dec 3, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

It felt good to be dizzy with purpose...

Oct 29, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

Teeth sharpen in the dank, split open the bone.

Oct 22, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

The Fiction of Light

The rooster’s body requires the fiction of light.

Sep 24, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

Even By Just Trying

My drool crusted around the edges. The collapse. The quiet in the gape.

Sep 4, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

Glass Cities on My Skin

Every day I wake into someone else, stitched from scraps I don’t remember choosing.

Aug 27, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

Aquariums That Cloud

Weather no longer weather, clouds rehearsed, heat rehearsed, the boardroom rehearsed.

Aug 20, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

Summer summer summer. It hummed on the tongue slower in the heat.

Aug 13, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

The Man on the Moon

Sympathy is easy, Armstrong. But you needed empathy, and that, the public decided, was too much to give.

Aug 6, 2025 • Shannon Ratliff

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