Brittany MacKeown
Bio
I also go by my middle name, Renee, but you can call me about anything
Stories (29/0)
- Top Story - October 2021
too personal
Exhibit 1 A front porch stoop, badly in need of repainting. The stairs are buckling in the middle from rain and wear and opossums. Blurry figures on the bottom step, taking it up in its entirety. Chattering, laughing, talking. A car pulls up, and a woman emerges, opening her arms for her child to run into them. A chaste kiss for her husband. A hug poorly executed and too tight and too little and too burnt-out.
By Brittany MacKeown3 years ago in Confessions
Blue Summer
Blue stared at her reflection. She squinted her eyes, angled herself, saw the bulge of her stomach, turned back, and looked at the sliver of exposed skin between her high-waisted jeans and striped crop top. She liked this shirt. The sleeves weren’t too short, and it didn’t cling to her sides like a python trying very hard to murder its really cute prey. But showing any part of her midsection made her heart race with anxiety. Her final verdict was that she could not, in good taste, wear it to a party where there would be another actual real live lesbian.
By Brittany MacKeown3 years ago in Fiction
Little Drops
You can watch a single train rumble past for the solid part of an hour if you have the patience. If you sit on top of a chain-link fence with nothing to do and just watch. You’ll notice the spaces in between the cars where the floodlights gleam through, the eerie, blaring horn, the clacking wheels, and the squeaking brakes as the train slows down miles before it reaches its destination. The giant, mechanical beast dashes along the earth’s scarred surface every night, waking the neighbors from their dreams. Some never get used to it – the noise, the trembling ground. I grew used to it at an early age. After all, that was my lullaby when nobody bothered to put me to bed.
By Brittany MacKeown3 years ago in Fiction
Mackinac Island
The weather was perfect. That doesn't happen often in the middle of June up near the border of Canada, even if the summers are theoretically milder. Humidity makes eighty degrees feel like ninety, and you can hardly sweat because the air is already so thick with moisture.
By Brittany MacKeown3 years ago in Wander
Neon Green
The blanket slumped off the side of the mattress. Sleeping in the house, especially when their old fan was broken, was impossible. Dry dusty heat simmered under the lead-lined ceiling, and Hara felt like a soup ingredient, boiling in a big pot. She was splayed out on the blissfully empty mattress, trying not to think about how little she had slept on her few precious hours off.
By Brittany MacKeown3 years ago in Fiction