Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri


Micro Mutant Postcard #108

(Image description/alt-text: A partly cloudy summer sky occluded behind the branches of a spindly pine tree. Green trees and the roof of a house appear in the lower right hand corner.listen to the poem, read by the author)

Melancholic hell roars within my messed up psyche, but hey, I made it this far. That dark Crip time we spent baking Mad-tinged bread simply went far too fast. Think life is hard now? My past makes such eXistence seem like some superhero savior picnic.

Image description/alt-text: A partly cloudy summer sky occluded behind the branches of a spindly pine tree. Green trees and the roof of a house appear in the lower right hand corner.

 

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Micro Mutant Postcard #119

Image description/alt-text: Stylized selfie of the author at a younger age. My eyes are shiny and golden and my lips are red. I am slightly smiling, and I am looking to the right at something off camera, with a dreamlike expression on my face. Surrounding me are a dark field of stars and four multi-colored planets. A red-orange planet is directly to the left of my mouth and is labeled with the word “Sheena.” A beige- and rust-colored planet is directly over my cheek on the right side. A small, blue and beige planet is hovering above my eyebrow on the right and is casting a shadow. A ringed blue and white, earth like planet is at the top of my head. There are two comets, one traveling across my forehead, ending at my eyebrow on the left, the other overlays the red-orange planet on the left. In the lower right-hand corner is a purple-pinkish starry nebula, under a semi-transparent watermark with #PHOTOLAB and photolab.com.(listen to the poem, read by the author)

My Mad grief formed a dreadful gravity well back then. Worried I couldn’t reach escape velocity, my Crip glitches kept me in orbit, secure enough to ride #MyOwnLittlePony. Giddy up, my violet-tinged space-steed, time to get off the manic merry-go-round before burning up upon reentry.

Image description/alt-text: Stylized selfie of the author at a younger age. My eyes are shiny and golden and my lips are red. I am slightly smiling, and I am looking to the right at something off camera, with a dreamlike expression on my face. Surrounding me are a dark field of stars and four multi-colored planets. A red-orange planet is directly to the left of my mouth and is labeled with the word “Sheena.” A beige- and rust-colored planet is directly over my cheek on the right side. A small, blue and beige planet is hovering above my eyebrow on the right and is casting a shadow. A ringed blue and white, earth like planet is at the top of my head. There are two comets, one traveling across my forehead, ending at my eyebrow on the left, the other overlays the red-orange planet on the left. In the lower right-hand corner is a purple-pinkish starry nebula, under a semi-transparent watermark with #PHOTOLAB and photolab.com.

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Micro Mutant Postcard #154

Image description/alt-text: A spread out pile of overlapping words and illustrations cut from magazines and other publications in multiple colors, fonts, and backgrounds, most of which are only partially revealed oriented in random directions. The words “the,” “Lions,” “JOY,” “MOST,” “old-,” and “hands,” are completely visible. Small portions of the wooden floor appear sporadically underneath the display. (listen to the poem, read by the author)

I wanna be Neo; plug and play to escape my broken body and live straight. I wanna be Johnny Mnemonic; exchange my Madness for salacious secrets. I seek that transcendental computer chip, implanted in my Crip amygdalae, soothing my sick engrams, for the greater good.

Image description/alt-text: A spread out pile of overlapping words and illustrations cut from magazines and other publications in multiple colors, fonts, and backgrounds, most of which are only partially revealed, oriented in random directions. The words “the,” “Lions,” “JOY,” “MOST,” “old-,” and “hands,” are completely visible. Small portions of the wooden floor appear sporadically underneath the display.

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Read Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri’s essay in memory of Steven J. Taylor in this issue of Wordgathering.

About the Author

Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri (she/her/hers, they/them/theirs) is a long-time employee at Syracuse University. She co-created (with Diane R. Wiener) “Cripping” the Comic Con, the first of its kind interdisciplinary and international symposium on disability and popular culture, previously held at SU. At conferences and as a guest lecturer for many years, Rachael has presented on the X-Men comic books, popular culture, and disability rights and identities from her perspective as a Neurodivergent person and as a Mad Queer Crip. Entries in their “Micro Mutant Postcard Project” have been published in Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature and Stone of Madness. Their most recent publications include two articles (co-authored with Diane R. Wiener) in the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies‘ Special Issue, “Cripping Graphic Medicine I: Negotiating Empathy and the Lived Experiences of Disability in and through Comics” (Volume 17, Issue 3).