Courtney Cantrell

Courtney is the pretty one, the cheerleader, the prom queen. I kid. Sort of. If the Kindle All-Stars were high school, she would be all those things, but she'd be the one everyone loves rather than the overly popular, Muffy Tepperman type. (To you younger readers, I say, "Google it.") She keeps us smiling with a positive attitude. She really is terrific for moral support and a voice of reason. Of course, she's also a mischievous little elf and we adore that side of her as well.

Courtney also writes the Demons of Saltmarch series and is quite the accomplished artist. I believe she painted the artwork for her book covers. And she's done quite a few for other authors. [ed. I was mistaken in that last bit. Courtney corrected me in the comments section below. Sorry kids!]

Colors of Deception, the first in the
Demons of Saltmarch series
can be found on Amazon for Kindle and in print

night sunshine


it's a hollow place
behind where cartilage attaches ribs to sternum
just a nudge to the right of my heart


i tell you, it's a hollow place
empty of tangible
my body curls protectively around it
shielding it
hiding it from prying eyes
and oh, it aches


if you cut me open
--no, listen!
if you cut me open there, 
you will find
a perfect sphere of translucent midnight
the darkness of what has slumbered too long


a latent, formless winter
in which rainstorms coalesce
and bear my passions to a far-off land
--like an embrace carried on thunder
and a kiss on the lightning


if you cut me open,
you will find this winter
dark and awakening
seamless and seemless


too definite to reject
too irresistible to ignore
and at its core burns
the evidence: night sunshine,


a miniature, incandescent star
nestled in the hollow place beside my heart
warmth spreads from my core
to my limbs
into my fingertips
waking me up
rising
giving life


night sunshine
unanticipated
irrevocable
welcome in everything it brings


if you cut me, you will see it:
night sunshine, 
seeping from my joyous wound
flashing brilliant and comforting
seemless winter banished
painful ache denied
resistance relinquished like a dull blade
--and gladly


if you cut me, it is yours--
that hollow place beside my heart
in which to make your home


and 
to mark your path,
the night sunshine
pointing the way
beckoning on
welcoming in


night sunshine
if you cut me,
i bleed ultraviolet.




Courtney Cantrell is a writer of high fantasy, low sci-fi, and medium horror. The making of things and the sharing of those things with others is her passion. She enjoys chocolate and coffee and tries to keep these from making her sentences unnecessarily complicated. http://courtcan.com