Elisa Wontorcik
Bio
Artist, writer, and ritual-maker reclaiming voice through chaos and creation. Founder of Embrace the Chaos Creations, I craft prose, collage, and testimony that honor survivors, motherhood, and mythic renewal.
Stories (62)
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A Mirror Moment
A Mirror Moment I don’t go to the mirror looking for anything. I’m just passing through the bathroom, moving slowly, heavily, the way people move underwater. But something pulls my gaze — not curiosity, not vanity, just a faint instinct, like checking a pulse.
By Elisa Wontorcik2 months ago in Poets
My Disappearance
Disappearance doesn’t happen all at once. It’s not a vanishing. It’s a thinning. A slow erosion of presence, a quiet fading at the edges of myself. The underwater mind pulls me down, the weight holds me there, and somewhere in the pressure and the dimness, I begin to lose definition.
By Elisa Wontorcik2 months ago in Poets
The Weight of it all
The weight doesn’t arrive like a burden. It arrives like a verdict. There is no warning, no shift in atmosphere, no moment to prepare. One breath I am sinking, the next I am pinned — held down by something I can’t see, can’t name, can’t negotiate with. The ground doesn’t just catch me. It claims me.
By Elisa Wontorcik2 months ago in Poets
Mind underwater
The Mind Underwater The ground didn’t just stop me. It swallowed me. Impact wasn’t a moment — it was a breach. The brightness collapsed, the air thinned, and before I could brace, the world gave way beneath me. I didn’t land on the ground. I fell through it.
By Elisa Wontorcik2 months ago in Poets
Full Descent
Full Descent The descent never feels like falling at first. It feels like slowing. It feels like thickening. It feels like the air turning to syrup around me. After so much altitude, so much brightness, so much velocity, the first downward pull feels almost gentle — a soft tug at the edges of my mind, a heaviness settling into my limbs.
By Elisa Wontorcik2 months ago in Chapters
Beginning of the Fall
Chapter 7: The Beginning of the Fall The higher you go, the harder you fall. The fall never begins with a crash. It begins with a wobble — a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in the internal atmosphere. A moment where the altitude that once felt like freedom suddenly feels unstable. The air thins just a little too much. The light sharpens just a little too far. The speed becomes just a little too fast to sustain.
By Elisa Wontorcik2 months ago in Poets
The First Hairline Cracks
The first cracks never look like cracks. They don’t arrive with drama or warning. They don’t announce themselves as danger. They hide inside the very things that feel like power — speed, clarity, momentum, capability. That’s why they’re so easy to miss. That’s why they’re so dangerous.
By Elisa Wontorcik2 months ago in Poets
The Problem with Altitude
The Problem With Altitude Altitude always feels like freedom at first. The higher I rise, the lighter everything becomes — the thoughts, the tasks, the doubts, the weight of my own history. The air thins in a way that feels clean, almost holy. I can see farther. I can think faster. I can move without friction. It feels like transcendence.
By Elisa Wontorcik3 months ago in Chapters
The Body as a Warning
The body always knows before the mind admits it. Long before the thoughts begin to fray, long before the brilliance turns brittle, long before the light fractures into something sharp, my body starts sending signals — quiet, precise, insistent. Not alarms. Not emergencies. Warnings.
By Elisa Wontorcik3 months ago in Chapters
Overexposure
There is a point in the ascent where the brightness stops illuminating and starts burning. It happens gradually, then all at once — the moment when the light that once felt like clarity becomes something harsher, sharper, more invasive. This is the stage of the upward weather I call overexposure.
By Elisa Wontorcik3 months ago in Chapters
The Myth of Brilliance
There is a point in the ascent where the speed stops feeling like speed and starts feeling like genius. It’s the most dangerous part of the upward weather — not because it’s chaotic, but because it feels like truth. The chemistry sharpens everything: thoughts, senses, instincts, confidence. And in that sharpened state, it becomes easy to believe that the brightness is earned.
By Elisa Wontorcik3 months ago in Poets
