PCC INSCAPE MAGAZINE
  • Online Issue No. 10
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    • Online Issue No.9
    • 2016 Fall Online
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    • 2017 Fall Online
    • 2017 Print Issue - Manifesto TOC
    • 2018 Fall Print Issue - Frankenstein TOC
    • 2018 FA Frankenstein Companion
    • 2018 Summer Online
    • 2018 Fall Folio - VOTE
    • 2018 Fall Spirituality
    • 2019 Celebrating Dia De Los Muertos
    • 2019 SPR Mental Health Companion >
      • Issue Intro
    • 2019 Fall Folio -- Moon Moon
    • 2019 Fall Folio
    • 2020 Summer Folio
    • 2020 Feb Folio
    • 2021 Feb Folio
  • Feral Parrot : The Blog
  • 2022 Handley Awards
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2017 Handley Creative Writing Prize
​for Non-Fiction

Giselle Burciaga / The Eruption

My mother's normally calm and pleasant demeanor squished and contorted into an all-consuming anger: nostrils flared; eyes flashed closing into slits; lips quivered and slurred almost-unintelligible words that spewed into the air like a volcano releasing its ash and fire to destroy and consume everything in its path; hands were balled fists as she crouched forward, daring me to repeat what had somehow torn her heart into shards and darkened her sunny and bright images of who she thought her daughter could become -- aren't you going to be a teacher? What kind of a role model will you be now? -- and I could only watch this destructive metamorphosis of her face and body, the mask of love blackening, the knife-like eyes slicing into my body, so shocking that to this very day I am still haunted by her power to transform me from her loving girl to this disloyal beast, but then, in the quiet tension, she released a deafening sigh of hot air, her body expanding and then purging the fire, her eyes opening wide to reveal the remnants of a fiery, lava-filled abyss, until I was  so small then, just burnt chaparral and charred hillside, hoping for relief, sputtering out a faint mom -- just chill -- it's only a tattoo.
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  • Online Issue No. 10
  • About
    • PCC Inscape Instagram
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ISSUE ARCHIVE
    • Online Issue No.9
    • 2016 Fall Online
    • 2016 Sppring Online
    • 2017 Fall Online
    • 2017 Print Issue - Manifesto TOC
    • 2018 Fall Print Issue - Frankenstein TOC
    • 2018 FA Frankenstein Companion
    • 2018 Summer Online
    • 2018 Fall Folio - VOTE
    • 2018 Fall Spirituality
    • 2019 Celebrating Dia De Los Muertos
    • 2019 SPR Mental Health Companion >
      • Issue Intro
    • 2019 Fall Folio -- Moon Moon
    • 2019 Fall Folio
    • 2020 Summer Folio
    • 2020 Feb Folio
    • 2021 Feb Folio
  • Feral Parrot : The Blog
  • 2022 Handley Awards
  • INTERVIEWS
  • Inscape Alumni Board