Confessions – Izzy Tanashian

July 25, 2025

a room / a dream / a memory

 

I. a room

my addiction is a mosaic;
yeah, that’s it 

i’m an artist and this is a work of art
and i’m trailing off again
because i’m distracted by the mildewed carpet
and dizzied by the height of the ceiling

the sloped walls are littered with crannies
contoured by bits of oriental rug,
faded coral insulation that looks like
raw meat long expired 

and if it were any higher
the grainy outline of shoddy piping
would be swallowed by a pitch-black singularity

i am relieved in this moment it’s still visible
because i am always in this room
basking in its muted sepia glow
and in here,
my eyes 
like to play tricks on me.

it’s warm and it smells like 
dying embers
i curl into a ball and i’m a pupa
and this chrysalis is divine

and i never want to leave
and being alive is an art
and i do it so well
and all i imagine is mine
and–

 

II. a dream

tonight i dream the chrysalis
suffocates and digests me

i try like hell to claw my way out
but its silken grip tightens and swells

beating 
like an anaphylactic throat

the Blue Channel 
flickers in the foreground

a reminder to breathe
in sync with its static

the analog glow is a beacon
as i fall, fading fast to black

black means i’m dying, right?
i don’t die

but i’m submerged here forever
blind, leaden, alone

 

III. a memory

i’m probably four years old
at a log cabin in the white mountains
for a family reunion

in my room there’s a window 
facing the entire mountain range
but the peaks are cloaked in dense fog

i ask poppa why we can’t see the tops
he says it’s just a yucky day
and tosses me a little bag of Rold Golds

i largely keep to myself 
because i brought my portable stereo from home
along with the Moby 18 CD 
i couldn’t fall asleep without

sunday was a bright day, yesterday
dark cloud has come into the way

i drift off under a musty hand-sewn quilt 
to images of storm clouds and gentle rains
soaking oak leaves so green 
they must be exhausted too

i never slept so well again

 

 

Redemption

I lost my dog Stu a few years back. His death was traumatic for me to say the least; if he had simply passed in his sleep, or truth be told, even if he’d been hit by a car, it would’ve been easier on me than what did him in.

I am solely to blame for what happened to him; I’ve always been a curious son-of-a-cur, so naturally, after the autumn squalls of cryptocelium spores that ravaged the East Coast, I was elated to find a violet fungal growth the size of a silo at the edge of the forest near my house. Its presence was spiritually friendly, so I decided to approach it; make contact with it. I hugged and climbed it, and stripped chunks from its fruiting body to cook with that evening. I thought I’d prepare Stu a one-of-a-kind meal as an expression of gratitude for his unwavering companionship. After all, it was just the two of us against the world, and I wanted him to know how much he meant to me. In the morning, I awoke to find his lifeless body on the basement staircase landing, consumed by metastatic spores.

Near his carcass, I discovered a shriveled being in Stu’s bed; a pallid, skeletal-looking creature with long, sagging ass cheeks speckled with petechiae. I didn’t quite know what to make of this; the creature seemed benign enough, but I was at a complete loss as to how it came to inhabit my basement. It looked up at me with a baffling emotional depth; upon gazing into its eyes, I somehow knew that this creature was called a Munna. Unsure whether this entity could have had something to do with Stu’s grisly death, I backed away; I certainly didn’t want to contract anything the Munna might be carrying.

“Curiosity killed the fucking dog! And I’m the cat!” I screamed, pummeling myself in the eyes repeatedly until they were black and blue. Why did I have to be such a fiend for getting myself into trouble? A few feet away, the Munna stirred quietly. I hesitantly approached the emaciated creature, kneeled beside it, and extended my hand to caress its fragile head. A single tear trickled from its pygmy eye.