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...
"No, absolutely not!" Mama Tiger told her cub.
"But Moooooom! All the other cubs get to bring down a gazelle at my age!"
"I don't care what all the other cubs do. I'm not their mother; I'm yours. And the answer is no."
Timothy Tiger wandered off to sulk with his siblings, who were fighting over a piece of dark meat. Watching his brothers fight over a leg, he mumbled, "I bet your mother wasn't overprotective like mine."
He stopped and pondered this a moment. "Oh," he said in sudden realization, shrugged his shoulders and grabbed a leg bone from...
The wind hit my face just right. My cheeks instantly turned red and i put my head down into my mitten-covered hands to sheild the cold.
We stood in the driveway as the snow swirled around the neighborhood, you placed your hand on my shoulder and led me to your warm car.
The heat was steaming the windows; we removed our gloves and hats. Dashboard Confessional was playing on the college radio station, and I sang along in my head.
We talked for atleast and hour, in between what we knew were goodbye kisses, but not saying goodbye at all...
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...
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 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...
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...
They were listening. From somewhere distant, came the familiar sounds of gunshots, stone-throwing, angry slogans. But here it was quiet- deserted streets, shut down shops, boarded windows and houses so dead that they wouldn't be out of place in a graveyard.It was safe to be here. Nobody would mind, nobody would bother. They flitted out in the glorious sunshine of a bright day, trying to ignore the smell of dried blood mingled with the fragrance of the lake, the trees and the mountains. The pigeons of Srinagar were not worried about the curfew.
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...
It seemed a good idea to tell the kids to hide behind the bars when the boy went berserk. Glue sniffing was the first suspicion but when we found the numbers appearing all over his skin, a priest was summoned. 666 isn't the kind of thing you normally expect to see on young skin, measles, chicken pox, blackheads, sunburn is a yes. But numbers? That was plain weird.
The exorcist prayed, sprinkled holy water and blessed the boy by putting his hand on his forehead. 666 kept appearing until there wasn't a millimetre of untouched skin.
Then, just to confuse...