Jo Carroll
Bio
Jo Carroll is an avid writer who dreams of publishing exciting stories, but until then she isn't giving up her day job. She's published poetry in Jitter, Three Line Poetry, and 50 Haikus; and short stories in Shepherd Magazine.
Stories (17)
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The Fan
This afternoon I'm sitting in my house, reading a book while I digest my dinner and the rain dries up to a drizzle outside as the storm subsides. I've been home for about an hour and a half at this point, and for some reason the cats (who are never a barometer of normal) have been hanging out in and around the kitchen since I fed them. They're not begging for treats or anything, just sitting there quietly.
By Jo Carroll3 years ago in Horror
Song of The Selkie-Wives
Unlucky, our solemn sisterhood, that we could lose what long empowered our seals’ soul. Lost, in all likelihood durably for t’would be devoured by despair for mirthful memory of endless sea flowing everywhere. No prayer can save such devotees as we with our stolen selkie-wear. From golden shores in nymph's nurseries where we played and bathed for fishermen who stole our skins, now we’re refugees of the sea, that to them be beholden. Pleased to be brides in the beginning, for flings and romantic rendezvous— yet to view there’d be no homecoming— naïve dreams of dauntless derring-do. With seal-skin’s locked beyond bailiwick, we were tricked into dark domiciles. Trained to be wives, ideal domestics, far from home on slick swells empyreal. Now we dream of sea-lore longingly, though this be our lot—victims evermore. Was it blind chance, or dark destiny bound we so, home to know nevermore? Wives of the green isle, we selkie-brides, daughters of the tides, rue reconciled. We were wild there, free and dignified, stripped of our hides we remain immobile. Sing we our song, sorrow suffering, sing we of seas rolling endlessly. Sing we, selkie-wives, in forewarning to our seal sisters, of The Unlucky
By Jo Carroll3 years ago in Poets
Cross The Threshold
With dread I cross the threshold of this place Where childhood memories have been erased By cobwebs and white sheets like gory shrouds. Now shadows creeping where they’re not allowed Crawl into my mind with their cold embrace. Now empty all the shelves, bare each bookcase, Like bones picked clean and brutally defaced. In every empty corner shadows crowd. With dread I cross the threshold. Each room once filled with love, now empty space, And of those memories there’s left no trace. The silence echoes off the walls so loud, And o'er my eyes the shadows all enshroud Until I think that I can see your face. With dread I cross the threshold.
By Jo Carroll3 years ago in Poets
A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Hell Today: Chapter Two
My Headlong Dive through the Looking Glass Of course, my entrance wasn’t all that inconspicuous. Not unsurprisingly you can’t just walk into Hell. That’s a good thing if you think about it, sort of guarantees that no one bumbles into it accidentally, and gives a certain sense of confidence that no one can just leak out. Whatever Michael did seemed to have triggered a lightning storm, and I came in right through it. Everything went topsy turvy for twelve or thirteen seconds while I flipped head over heel trying to find my feet, and then I was very abruptly standing under my own power in a billowing cloud of sand.
By Jo Carroll4 years ago in Fiction
