aphrodite in an open casket

by Kenna DeValor

I take the scribbled note from my hands and check it one more time, making sure I read the note correctly. A tendril of spilled ink, with a shaky hand that fervently wrote: “Garden, near the brick and stone.” My warm breath creates smoke signals around me in the cold air. At least I’m sure I’m alive. I enter a gated square with lines of stone to catch each footfall. The smell of floral rot: the rose,  peony, and soil swirled around me in a delicate game of tug of war. Baby pinks, passionate reds, sickly browns and greens, a kaleidoscope of a garden on the edge of a bustling downtown.

The rot condescends the brick mansion, its permanent partner in decay. It feels peaceful at a time like this, the day feels a little bit like night, while birds still sing their sonnets.

Suddenly, I hear a voice call out to me, dark and deep, so much so that I feel it in the depths of my chest, like a bass drum.

 “You’ve found it.” He says. I turn to face him, the teeth grinding in my jaw being the only stable bravery I own.

 “Yes? Of course I did, I’ve compared every piece of this city to this very description.” I hold up the note as I shake my head, ignoring the sly smile peeling across his face.

He leads me to a patch of flowers, fallen and rotten— I could taste the nausea boiling in my stomach. The stranger points a pale finger to a particularly macabre flower, white and grey as ash with patches of pink that still made it look beautiful in its fate, lying beautifully like Aphrodite in an open casket.

“There,” he says smoothly–but sharp as a knife,  “See that? In the study of plants, whenever you see the rot, you cut it off to save the other plants.” 

My body stills as I peer down, frozen, feeling as helpless as the garden itself, the fog-turned-rain adorning their petals with pearlescent teardrops.

“This one, a shame, couldn’t be saved.” He continues.

His hand snakes around my neck like a python and I its prey, his breath warm against my freezing neck.

“Sometimes, you must sever the blight at just the right time, so nothing else is affected. Will you be that beauty saved, or will you lie in rot— like that poor thing there? The choice is yours, but sometimes nature does it for you before you can cut the rot out.”

His voice softens, almost apologetic.

I swallow hard, my insides twisting and turning.

I sigh, but it comes out more as a heave.

My mind begins to play tricks on me, my head swirling with begging whispers of escape, escape, escape.

In my peripheral vision, I see the glimmer of a blade raised just above my head. I close my eyes tightly and brace for this ugly thorn in my side. 

Photo of Kenna DeValor

BIO: Kenna DeValor (they/them/theirs) is a writer that hails from pothole-adorned paradise: Bethlehem, PA and has been published over 50+ times in 2024 alone and recently came out with their third poetry collection entitled DISCOFRUIT. Kenna is an alumni of Lehigh Valley Charter High School of the Arts (2017) and graduated in 2025 with a B.A in English/Creative Writing from Bloomsburg University. Kenna now attends Wilkes University for their MFA program in Creative Writing (Poetry/Fiction). When not writing, reading, or making fun DIY zines, Kenna is a professional tattoo artist and the EIC/Founder of the lit-arts magazine FlowerMouth Press.