Katie Alafdal
Bio
queer poet and visual artist. @leromanovs on insta
Achievements (1)
Stories (55/0)
Seven of Machine Gun Kelly’s Most Complicated, Philosophical Quotes Explained
1. “I am weed.” This is no doubt a reference to famed Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali’s famous ejaculation that, “I don’t do drugs. I am a drug.” A transgressive artist himself, MGK’s casual acknowledgement that altered states of consciousness do not necessarily require an external substance to catalyze them is still a somewhat radical spiritual and biochemical assertion.
By Katie Alafdal2 years ago in Beat
The Tsar of Echo Park
I am a father first, a serial killer second. You might imagine that one is incompatible with the other; that it is impossible for creation to exist so neatly beside annihilation. A reasonable enough supposition for the neurotypical mind, since most normal people have no need to consider the paradoxes that keep them afloat. But as someone with insider knowledge, I would argue that having a family has given me a certain edge in my work. They make me invisible in a way I might never have been as a single man.
By Katie Alafdal2 years ago in Horror
15 Relationship Red Flags as Told by the Personages of Greek Mythology
We’ve all heard the old adage that the heart wants what it wants. But how do you know if your heart is pining after a mere siren song, or the real deal? Here’s what fourteen dating and relationship experts from antiquity have to say about romantic liaisons to steer clear of!
By Katie Alafdal2 years ago in Humans
Pasiphaë
The Fridman's came from old money. One simply needed to look at them, or listen to them talk for a moment, to know it. The wife, Zoe, was in her thirties, with immaculate dark hair styled in a delicate chignon, a string of pearls perpetually around her throat. Her ancestors had fled Europe a century or so before Hitler's genocidal experiment, and so had made an impressive home for themselves in America before the worst of human nature reared its head across the Atlantic. The husband was a balding man in his early fifties, with thoughtful eyes and a thin mouth.
By Katie Alafdal3 years ago in Horror
What the Water Took From Me
Summer came to Copenhagen like the final breaths of air might come to a dying man: purely out of habit. Colorful facades beside the sea posing in the half-hearted sunlight because they had always done so this time of year. The blue air infused with ephemeral warmth but only for a little while. I might have found it beautiful if my head was not so full of violent and rotting thoughts.
By Katie Alafdal3 years ago in Fiction
- Top Story - September 2021
Queering the Healing ProcessTop Story - September 2021
*This piece contains descriptions of sexual assault, and may be disturbing for some readers. Before she assaulted me, Lydia seemed like exactly the kind of person I would want to date. She was older than me, with dark eyeliner and carefully curled brown hair. She liked poetry by Emily Dickenson and hikes by the ocean. We met in the usual way: a mutual friend had ushered me casually into her dorm room before we all were set to go out to a bar for the evening.
By Katie Alafdal3 years ago in Pride
Odysseus’s Guide to Back to School Parenting
With another school year in the works, it’s easy to feel flustered or anxious. But whether you’re setting your children loose in the Land of the Lotus-Eaters, dropping them off on the crumbling rocks of siren territory, or waving goodbye to them across the carpeted floors of a kindergarten room, I’ve got all the advice necessary to keep you in your element.
By Katie Alafdal3 years ago in Education