The Origin of a Long, Bitter Story
A trick of the ear,
the shape of a lobe,
or nerves galled tender
too young to know.
She spent her lifetime
hearing
what others meant
only for themselves.
Timons Esaias is a satirist, writer and poet living in Pittsburgh. His works, ranging from literary to genre, have been published in twenty-two languages. He has been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award, and he won both the Winter Anthology Contest and the Asimov's Readers Award. His story "Norbert and the System" has appeared in a textbook, and in college curricula, so yes, he is required reading. He was shortlisted for the 2019 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His full-length Louis-Award-winning collection of poetry—Why Elephants No Longer Communicate in Greek—was brought out by Concrete Wolf.
He teaches in Seton Hill University's MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program. People who know him are not surprised to learn that he lived in a museum for eight years.
