The ceremony was fine, stuffy and long but fine. The party had been alright, except that her father had booked a stuffy classical six piece when they really wanted to get a soul band.
But the father-in-law was paying so you could only say so much, and she never ever stood up to him anyway. So he had to spend five hours in a restrictive tuxedo, stealing glances at her as she danced with her father, with the best man, nodding and smiling as old ladies pulled at his arms so they could kiss his cheeks and congratulate him, telling...
The girl with the blond pony tail sits down on the grass with her fluffy pink skirt creating a cloud around her little body. She bends down and cups her little hands to the ground. Gingerly, she peeks at the treasure in her hands, lets out a shriek and runs to me. "Mommy! Mommy! Look at him!" Her little arm is thrust out to me and she lets me peek inside her hands. "Isn't he cute, Mommy?" I smile and tell her that the frog is very cute. Seeming satisfied with my answer, she runs back under a large tree,...
The sunlight pushed its way through the heavy curtains at my enormous window and I shut it out. I need to be alone, I tell myself but I know that I can never be alone for long. After a while someone is bound to come along and try to cheer me up. I might smile, might even laugh but we all know that laughter can't last forever. I force myself to peek out the window and observe the street below. A cluster of small children play on the sidewalk, laughing. The joy on their faces lights a spark in me...
"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...