B.B. Clifford's Blog, page 5

If I survive this winter, spring will bring the first shoots of aconite. This bastard child of hollyhocks and amaranthine will create a chaotic display of purples and blues to decorate my yard. My beautiful wolfsbane, a curse on the wolf pack of Mount Pelion Way.

Psychological horror Tangled Knot, by BB Clifford, is available now.

We have been entwined together in this tangled knot of grief, and now Paris wants to cut himself free. I can see that now.
Tangled Knot, by BB Clifford, is available now.

I think of grief as an incendiary device, blowing apart all you have known and fusing it into something new.
It could be hideous and deformed, like limbs splitting through skin, but it is new.
A fresh perspective.

Tangled Knot, by BB Clifford. Available now.

Always ask why they choose to hunt that particular witch...

​ "Men are rarely considered to be witches because they are not expected to caretake, to fawn, to smile, all of which I have failed to do. I come from a long line of witches who failed to appease the suburban beast and who were isolated and scapegoated, tarred and feathered, condemned as temptresses and accused of being histrionic. If the people of Mount Pelion Way could weigh me against a stack of Bibles and drown, hang, or burn me at the stake, they would."

Tangled Knot is the debut novel by queer author BB Clifford.

It's easier to hate when you turn someone into a mythical beast. Every community needs a gargoyle to scare them from the truth.

"They relegated my daughter to the dark corners of a myth. They might even claim that she never existed in the first place. To allow a witch such human emotions as grief and despair might weaken their resolve to expunge me from their town."

Debut novel by queer author BB Clifford, Tangled Knot, is available now.

#psychologicalhorror #queerauthor #booktok

 A witch hunt but their pitchforks are cell phones and the gallows are swing sets:

"I have nightmares of them illuminated by a full moon, with their modern-day pitchforks of cell phones to record evidence of their preconceptions that are planted, propagated, and then confirmed by therapists and religious leaders alike. They winch me up to hang from one of their swing sets, the noose tightening around my throat as my legs thrash for life. How they will laugh and jeer and point, celebrating the exorcism of the Witch of Mount Pelion Way. How the neighbors will rejoice, and the street will be decorated with floral garlands of victory and brocades of joy woven into the finest gold and silver."
 
Tangled Knot 
BB Clifford

Empires crumble, as quickly as an aged fortress.
All that is made can be unmade.

Rainbow Warrior
BB Clifford

#EcoHorror #PsychologicalHorror #GothicHorror 

“These ant-like people, these greedy terrorists, have inflicted their violence on Mother Earth for too long. Caught together in this vicious cycle of trauma and violence, their relentless pursuit of progress, they claimed her as one of their subjects, a whole world of them believing that they were the empire, and Mother Earth was somehow inferior. Hasn’t this always been the case? Haven’t you always claimed superiority over each other and the natural world? You point to scientific knowledge that you have created, to skull measurements or skin colors, and you believe each other when you talk of a master race. You create an echo-chamber of ignorance to justify more invasions; of other people as much as Mother Earth’s resources.”
 
Nothing is more haunting than a person’s greed.
 
Rainbow Warrior
BB Clifford

​“Beneath the hands that claw through the rubble, there is anguish and filth as much as toxins and contaminants. You can see the various layers of it, all the leakage throughout the generations, and it is combustible, sparking a hatred, a writhing greed that burns beneath the skin. It doesn’t just disappear when someone dies, in fact when you bury a body or scatter their ashes, you just add to it all, rotting the soil to poison anything that grows from it. And anything that is built upon it is doomed from the beginning, just as surely as generations of loved ones are destined to perish. There’s nowhere safe, no stable footing, and so soon you can see the cracks appear, the footings buckle, and mighty empires fall as surely as another one rises to take its place.”
 
Nothing is more haunting than a person’s greed.
 
Rainbow Warrior
BB Clifford

“You claimed superiority because of the homes you built and the territories you reclaimed as your own and renamed and carved heads of your presidents into the sides of mountains, just to prove that even nature agreed. (Nature did not agree.) Humans, the ultimate imperialists, rageful as you plunder all that you can seize, and anyone or anything that tries to resist is contained in a fortress that is kept under lock and secret key while you send in your tanks and tear up their land and use other ways to concentrate their mind on what you are trying to convince them about, so they believe in your superiority, because if they don’t, you will use the camps again as all empires have before you. And still, you call your subjects the barbarians, savages, or the unevolved.

But fortresses can crumble; it was arrogant of you to believe your concrete would hold for an eternity. All that is made can be unmade, all that is created eventually deteriorates and crumbles, setting free all manner of wrath and vengeance. You’ve seen what happens with every successive empire. Mother Earth will never be subjugated.”
 
Rainbow Warrior
BB Clifford