what is happening here

THE REGRET MACHINE IS BREATHING

THE REGRET MACHINE HAS BEGUN

THERE IS MUCH WORK LEFT

WHAT IS GOING ON




This Regret Machine is a blog project (bloject) by Hailey O'Gorman. She has a degree in Creative Writing and an MA in professional writing. She wants to do a PhD. The Regret Machine aims to spill stories and ideas based in three prisms of identity: the body, the consciousness and the trans* existence. Mainly, she would like to intermingle the three to create an idea of who she is, and bring some clarity to noise. 
The Machine is conceptual, but one that resolves to find output, and eventually, an answer for the hurt caused within our this cisnormative matrix-society. One day, Hailey will find herself. This blog is about trauma. This blog is about dysphoria. This blog is anxious. The machine is yet to learn how to hear, still stuck in painted thinking. 

This blog was initialised at the onset of the pandemic, foretold in a haphazard review of Processed by the Boys by Protomartyr. since then, the machine's been kicked like a dog and shaved like a lamb. when you shake it, something new rattles. following a stint in yugioh, where hailey did fine, i guess, she's now directing her attention to myths, the interior body, strange fiction and analogue emergent narratives from table top games. she hopes to get published again soon. she lives in bristol with her fiancee. 

her email is regretmachine [at] protonmail [dot] com. 



read the work

you know the drill, school girl - stone of madness press, issue 11

Queen of Denmark - The /tƐmz/ Review

tabula rasa blues - miniskirt magazine, issue 21

The Sink - Short Vine Literary Journal, Fall 2021

your guddies are scrappers - God's Cruel Joke literary magazine, issue three

angels dancing - something has gone terribly wrong and i will never talk to you again 

in the flesh

this is the best photo the girl took from '25.
there's an essay she's written about this frame.


she used to post shit like this all the damn time.
say goodbye to those job opportunities, woman!
her favourite image from the internet that continues to inspire her writing


a broken laptop
the heart of her broken laptop


 
her favourite heuristic
a favourite album from 2025




the most honest embodiment of the woman

                                                                        










Popular posts from this blog

Play the Hand, Find the Song: card games, coping and putting it to paper with unbearable shame

Image
  I pop ice from its plastic body and they slide across the countertop, taking refuge beneath the dishes again. I pour more coffee than I should be drinking into a glass one of us stole on a night out. I check the photo again, I try to read the words. The people make me smile. I wipe the sweat from my brow and lick it from the back of my palm. I like these people. I always assumed they’d never exist, or be some part of my imagination. They laugh, each in their own way, the same way I laugh, and I see myself in each of them. My phone lives at 10%. There’s rum down the side of the backseat. The music changes. There’s an ancient shipwreck buried beneath the soil. The sun comes by. We pass the same trees at the end of Devon. If we drive through the night we miss them, instead making the same jokes about double suicide or falling asleep behind the wheel. We argue for the fun of it. We raise our voices. I haven’t sung with anybody since I was in a school for boys. I still dream about the...
Read more

I DON'T NEED TO BE LUCKY, I JUST NEED TO BE HAPPY : music, books and other sentiments from twenty twenty five

Image
  Honningbarna released an album earlier in this year called Soft Spot that my friend heather described as norwegian black metal, and though i’m no expert in the scene, i wouldn’t call it black metal, i wouldn’t know where to begin with genre boundaries and placement. I don’t have the stomach to be that kinda mark. If i’ve learned anything over the year twenty twenty five, it’s that i’m not made like a know-it-all. I start most conversations with ‘I think it’s interesting that’, and now my mouth is all dry, and my mouth tastes clammier. When i drink water it just goes over my tongue. I haven’t really learned that i’m not made in any specific way. I just know that it’s music with spirit, man. The music has got the fucking spirit. It’s the party that never stops, that never dies, that keeps fucking going. It’s down woodland road at 15:15 without breaks on your back wheel or a helmet. My living has been in the hands of the surrounding world for a long time now, I’m only doing my job...
Read more

to be honest / jan 26

Image
do you see it too? TO BE HONEST , nobody has time for a sick sucker with no self-confidence. I certainly don’t. I’m the last sad sack crying a river for the dork who, because of her labour, sees herself as out of place, unable to contribute to her community. Both living her best life and succumbing to completely monotony. To be frank, it wasn’t better when I was trying to split myself open, but, dear lover, the quantity of my haters has me making quick jokes to entertain the court. No, I’ve already done my time. I’ve read that headline, I’ve seen all that was said in that court case. I’ve heard that song twice too many times. I’m perfectly able to contribute to a creative practice, as the words fall into place. I’m gonna try my hardest to set this up, and keep it up. I’m going to tell a lot of lies in my life, no matter how long or short I live. I won’t lie to you here. That doesn’t mean a lot of things, one of which is that I’m not going to make it easy for you to decipher the truth. ...
Read more