Bess lock eyed Meg as their minds circled each other warily.
"if I were a cat I'd scratch you." she ventured.
"A dog, I'd bite you." Meg countered.
"As a bear I'd press you down…"
"A horse I'd kick…"
"If I was a buzzard I'd swoop with talons…"
"A Magpie, I'd mob you with heavy wings…"
"A hornet I'd sting…"
"A swallow, I'd flit and dart with sharpened beak…"
"And what would it get you, Old Meg?"
"Methinks the same as you,Young Bess. Naught but ill."
They stopped mentally pacing. A battle over that had never begun.
"What now then,...
The bully grabbed me and Billy by the collar. He started dragging us in the direction of what looked like a soccer goal, but had strange metal bars around it. It seemed as if there was already someone in there.
"Get in there, Squirts!" Chase growled. He kicked us in the goal like a soccer ball, except we didn't score him any points.
"So you're here too, I see. What did you do to him?" The strange girl said. "My name is Lara. I didn't give Chase my money when he asked. I should've just given it to him." She...
The argument that had started before they left the house – before, even, they had learned that they would have to leave the house at all – continued as they drove. Jacob gripped the steering wheel with white knuckled hands, channelling his anger into the car instead of out at his wife, Barbara.
Barbara sat next to him, seething silently, her own hand wrapped together, her own knuckles just as white as her husband’s. One would soon break the deadlock, but neither wanted to be the first. The air was heavy with upset.
Jacob broke first. “You still not speaking...
One scoop chocolate, one scoop strawberry, it was amazing they hadn't seen each other for twenty five years but he could recall her favorite ice cream tastes. Wow she though,t he really did remember everything about them, maybe he was sincere, maybe he did love her, and never forgot about their deep, close, tender relationship.
"When I saw you again just now my heart really skipped a beat" he said softly, "I mean look at you, you have hardly changed at all, you are beautiful,l you look just the same, you look,well radiant" He was gushing with compliments, surely he...
The water was clear and not a cloud was in the sky. Melody lay in the tall weeds near the lake under a weeping willow.
This was the last day of her summer vacation and as she was lounging there she was pondering all of the things she had done that summer and the things she wished she did.
She realized that only so much is possible in 104 days but that realization did not defer her mind from thinking of all her missed opportunities.
In reality isn't it strange that humans must choose what they want to use their...
The body is the lie. The woman who speaks to you face-to-face
with a carefully controlled flex of muscles around the eyes
and the upward curve of just one side of her mouth
that tells you "I'm amused at whatevever joke you just told"
The polite look of interest that cleverly morphs into concern
with a downward press of eyebrows
and a slight lean forward accompanied by a sympathetic noise
they are all walls that look like doors
You would know it for the avatar it is
if you realized she never reaches out a hand,
never bridges that social...
"Who are you?" Gene didn't want to know the answer, but hurled at the woman sitting across the cafe table regardless. It was because of her that he was alone, it was her fault his wife no longer slept at his side.
She sucked at her cigarette, delivering her answer on a ribbon of viscous blue smoke. "Heather. Who're you?"
Gene, ever the copywriter, bit his tongue as his mind snatched the apostrophe from her words. 'Whore' he wanted to scream at the girl who shared the bed of the only woman he'd ever fucked.
'Liar,' the little voice in...
The year was 1986. September the 27th to be exact. I lay on a hospital bed spewing into a cardboard bucket whilst the midwives clucked around the bed. I knew what they were thinking. I knew they were judging. My belly moved up and down like a giant rock and fear gripped me harder than any contraction could. How did I get here? This wasn't supposed to happen. I'd had plans to leave home but not like this. University, air stewardess...anything but this. My new husband held my hand tightly as I pushed the boy into the world. He was...
Smell of moss, picked up by wind and lifted by trees. Flash of fire-rimmed eyes, toss of disdainful hair, gold-threaded-with-crimson. Derisive eyes and a tight little mouth, quick to contempt and slow to praise. Slender hands and slender frame roped the man in as easy as you please, and for what seemed like a thousand years promises of glittering gold kept her tethered to him like a
Half a life lived
within four walls
the once unthinkable
now familiar
with endless routine
a strange comfort
a life reset every day to run
the same sweep of hours
One small act
stealing from my future
thinking to be happy
now...then
realizing too late
the mistake
giving hostages
to my good behavior
Moments of quiet
hours of noise
time in the yard
never solitary
taking comfort
in the dark
giving in
the dark
Twenty years
one more small act
now here I am
standing
outside those walls
a life lived as half a whole
now to be lived
an...