"What can't you just try to understand?" I couldn't say how many times I hurled those words at someone. My parents, siblings, friends, just about everyone. Each time the words would leave my mouth, they would leave me curled up in a corner somewhere dark and quiet, my heart throbbing and bleeding and aching as I try to stop my tears. But eventually I would let them fall. Tears are really quite good at washing the blood from my heart. The wounds never really heal but they scab over and leave scars that I know will be opened again if...
The sights were beautiful, made even more wonderful by the pair of strong, protective arms wrapping around me as we sat looking ever the lake. The night air was cool on my skin and so very refreshing. I allowed myself to melt in his arms as his breath kept a steady rhythm adding to the song of the summer evening. The soft chirping of birds, the gentle whipsering breeze dancing through the trees and playing with my hair, the quiet clapping of the water in front of us - all of this combined in the most magical way to create...
"What the hell kind of superhero costume is that?!" My dad was yelling so loud I could hear him from my room. When the blue cow suit had appeared, I'd been so excited. My brother Eddie hadn't gotten his disguise until he was twelve. Mom's quiet reply made me feel a little less anxious but it didn't seem to have much effect on Dad.
"Kendall, I'm sure it's something he'll grow into. Eight is awfully young for his powers so there's plenty of time-"
"Grow into? Who's going to take a blue cow with fangs seriously? I can see the...
"His eyes closed with a sinnister grin?" Rabbit said. "What does that even mean? His eyes were grinning? Or the grinning caused his eyes to close? I don't get it. The imagery just doesn't pop and imagery needs to pop, or at least not be this strange Cheshire cat thing."
"A what kind of cat?" Weasel said.
"Cheshire. A Cheshire cat, like in Alice in Wonderland."
"Oh, I've never seen that."
Rabbit looked at him, mouth open. "Regardless of having seen it or not, or even better, having read the book, since you are trying to be a writer, you...
Summer at my grandparents was an endless game of imagination, lying in the grass with army blankets tented across the clothesline, the sacred tie give over to Grandma's "shows" in the afternoon, my grandfather on the back porch with a baseball game on the radio and the smell of cigarette smoke in the air, grasshoppers caught in a jar with holes poked in the lid, and tart cherries from the tree out back. I had no sense of time passing and the memories still leave a taste of bittersweet on my tongue.
We'd sit across from each other for hours,...
I desire no pity, and I deserve no pity. This is my own personal Mark of Cain, and it is one I have brought to myself. There is always a price to such things, to knowledge and desire. His dark hand covers my face, and one day this mark will come to be paid. In the meantime, I am not without benefit. And I am not without resource.
I can seek out answer in library and archive. I may find none, and I would still have no regret when the great darkness at the very edge of human vision comes...
As the Sun rose from His slumber,
She began to stir
in her little house of wood,
a coffin just for her.
Each day,
she hears them scrape
away the earth with shovels,
waiting until
finally
her final bed is done
forever for her to lay.
In the morning,
she awakes,
dead to others
yet alive in her dreams,
to the sound of falling stones
as they cover her coffin.
And, as the final stone fell,
she said a silent prayer, asking for
sweet dreams for her to keep.
And as the earth lay there,
the mound dug in the...
The day after tomorrow, this will all be over. He stood, still in body if not in mind. The wind that brushed past him seemed to pause, as if considering this new obstacle, before gathering the leaves that hunched against the curb and whirling them off in a wild reel. With his head tilted as if listening to a far-off conversation, he tried to pin down the source of his unease. Raising a hand in the dim twilight, he ignored the fine tremor that shook it and re-settled the case strapped across his back. Nerves, then, and nothing to do...
he ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet. He couldn't believe what had happened. Today had started off so well, everything going to plan.
He had woken early, before his alarm, excited as a kid at Christmas. He'd gone to work, where he had tried in vain to concentrate on his work.
Every second had seemed like an hour, but finally 5pm had come.
He had sat across from her at the restaurant, his heart in his mouth. She had looked lovely; more beautiful than she had ever looked. Her golden hair shimmering in the...
The trip was turning into a disaster: we got lost at every turn, the food made us barf, the sites were disappointingly normal and the boisterous flow of life that had seemed so appealing when we first started teasing out the details of what a mutually enjoyable vacation would look like, all of a sudden reminded us of the very place we were trying to escape.
Today's excursion hit the last patience nerve left.
"I have to leave this place. I want my life back", I thought to myself on the bus ride back to the hell hole that sounded...