I couldn't sleep with her next to me, he said. She was tossing and turning, not to mention I couldn't stop looking at her. Her blonde hair rolled up onto her head in a knot, my college t-shirt, and her Superman underwear- I just couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was beautiful.
In the morning when I was still looking at her she smiled wide, loving that I was already (well, still), awake. She kissed my forehead and slid closer.
"Dude, what are you doing, you said you didn't love her."
"I can't help it, the way she...
Vanquished, that was how they wanted me to feel as I knelt there on the cold flagstone, my head bowed, my hands clasped.
I could hear the echoes of the crowd marching up the street and knew that they would be upon me soon, their torches ablaze, their spirits hungry for blood.
I was to be renounced as a witch, that most reviled of creatures.
My fate was no longer in my hands, I was to surrender that along with my freedom and my life when the mob broke into my sanctuary.
Because I had dared too love too much,...
"Carry the wreath, Henry, your mother is waiting."
Father's terse words spoken from the side of his mouth, muffled by his coat's collar and the stub of a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He fancied himself a small-town Bogart. He was the only one.
Two days past christmas and we're out before dawn, getting decorations.
"For next year. Don't worry about it," he says, pulling the flask from the inside pocket. "Carry it another few blocks and maybe I'll give you a sip."
He drinks and staggers and coughs. The butt falls from his mouth and I crush...
I was playing basketball with Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. We were playing 3 on 3. It was Michael, Carmelo and myself. We were playing to 21. It was tied 19 to 19, win by two. We've got the ball up top, Melo checks it. I run and set a pick for Jordan across the baseline. Jordan slides off of me, while I set the pick. Kobe gets through pretty quickly, but not quick enough. Jordan catches it in the corner and does a quick turn around jumper. 20-19. Make it take it, so...
there once was a blank it attacked a man who had no hair. he was a very kind man but nobody could see hi. there are full of mysters in this world that nobody really knows. there was a dragon who attacked kenna boyer then kyle came to rescue her and they got married and babies. then lee Kamp got a divorce with his lady and married kyle and kenna was lonely. then kenna got together with a pink donkey his name was jimbo he loved to make shaped with hands and his feet were as brights as a hipopotimus...
Aangekomen op het kruispunt keek ik naar rechts.
En naar links.
Links lag mijn bestemming.
Een dag vol kennis en testen.
De weg naar een opleiding,
en een goede baan.
Onderweg naar mijn toekomst.
Het stoplicht springt op groen.
Iik de vrijheid tegemoet.
Goodnight... I didn't think I would wake up. Well, maybe I did. Seventeen pills ought to have done it. It didn't. I guess I had known that. My sophomore-year project on suicide told me that. That seventeen wasn't enough. And I shouldn't have told anyone either. I got dragged to a counselor in front of my crying father (who never cries). I got dragged to a therapist, whom, thank God, realized the insanity of my life, and my mother (who refused to talk about her issues). Maybe I would have gone a different route, used talking, anything else, other than...
The alligator with the cardboard mouth. The whipped cream on the stairs. Hollow clang. Syncopated clatter.
The brighter colors remind me of childhood. Not that adulthood has been faded yellows or softening greys. But a luminescent green or radiant orange triggers my primary nostalgia.
The set is bare. The slice of bread reads 5 in ketchup. A lazy harmonica.
When time runs out here, it starts over there. Follow the alligator king.
Starvation.
He'd heard the word before, used it - but he hadn't known what it meant. He knew that now. He had no idea of what it really meant, not until now, not until this moment (but he knew it would continue to get worse until he could eat, of course it would, that gnawing inside would only get worse)
His vision was failing, he was dizzy - he needed something, needed to find something to eat, or he would -
He knew it with a painful clarity. He would die.
Again.
It had been bad enough the first time...
A small flower
Just a seed
planted in the dark
you were fed, to grow, to blossom.
In the dark you grew,
Spreading your leaves out so far,
Reaching for the light,
Almost touching it,
You found it,
But it was too soon
You wilted
Curling back into the dark.
Your thorns, so sharp,
Gripping with all their strength,
Holding tightly,
Waiting for life.
Back into the dark you went,
into the ground,
Forever in the earth,
Never to grow.