Kelsey was afraid to go out at night. Afraid of big, bad Bromley. When she told people she met online that she left in Kent, they always said she was lucky to live in such a nice, leafy Home County, nestled away in the undergarments of England's green and pleasant land.
But Kent had a dark, nasty side. That side was called Bromley. Yet another drive-by? Really? People didn't associate Kent with gun crime, or compare it to the LA ghettos, but Kelsey did.
Her friend Marie had also had enough of it. But Marie wasn't so scared.
"Kelsey, let's...
"Listen," I whisper. "Hear the waves crash."
She listens, head cocked to one side. Her beautiful golden hair cascades down her face, a blonde waterfall.
"They're telling you stories," I tell her. "And you can hear them, if you listen."
You can almost hear her, the force it takes for her air-filled brain to concentrate, and listen. Now, she is perfectly poised, on the edge of the cliff. The waves break below her, screaming in her ear. It only takes a slight shove, and she topples off the edge. Even in death she is picture-perfect. For a few moments she...
I've been taught to play it safe since I was a child. Everything always slipped out of my grasp. And I never seemed to mind. Then you managed to come into my life and make scars that, even decades later, will remind me of the love we had. Can you fathom how beautiful that is? I held onto you tightly because you were the only thing that mattered. Please don't say that my love was suffocating you. I couldn't imagine loving you any less. Maybe we were too young to understand what we had. Maybe I was too naive and...
Sideways glances and meanderings
Staring down some dark alley street
Cobbled and
oh
so
crooked.
This sway of me breezes free
seeking peace
not seeking.
Blood rushes through these veins
but ethereal do I sometimes feel
when falling.
Sweet surrender to do we offer ourselves to each other
and truly believe this is it.
Who are we kidding?
Death has no mercy and sometimes won't even let us die
but instead waste away inside of
bars
flesh
dreams.
So it be
so it be
but not definitely..
She could feel the terror drenching and cloaking itself around her. Don't be afraid, it whispered. You've known for years, it whispered. But still she did not know what do to.
Her name was Emma Fairfax, and she was dying.
It approached, back bent and hooded cloak hiding its face. It was terrifying and calming all at once, a simple presence in a simple place.
She was afraid.
A single bony finger reached out from under the sleeve and cricked forward, beckoning her towards the form. "Come to me," it whispered.
And she did.
They were listening.
He knew, and he didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing would matter, after all, after this.
He kept moving forward. Sometimes it felt inevitable. Sometimes it felt like it wasn't his feet propelling him, but something else, a force of nature, a gravity holding his life in balance. He kept going. It didn't matter what kept him going, after all. Nothing would matter after this.
They were watching.
He could feel their eyes even as he moved, boring giant holes into his skin, mining his body for- for what, he didn't know. Their eyes had been a...
she kept bird feathers in an old mason jar beside her bed. every night she would pick one, and blow sweet, freshly toothpasted air through the meat of it. sometimes dust would fly away with the wind, other times a few clingy strands of the feather would lazily float through the air. every morning, she would pick one, and slowly stroke her face with it, making soft rotations until she felt alive again. she says it stopped the dreams from coming real. one day, i worked up the nerve to ask her, "how do you pick the feathers you do?"...
We wrote a song for the silver trees. The streetlamps gathered underneath the bridge to hear us. Our band played. Others milled. The night was soft. The river was a metronome.
We wrote a song for the silver trees.
Sylvia wasn't sure she should have been there, never higher than 3rd chair in the symphony, but the viola was for her and her alone. I loved it when she tilted her neck just so. The chains glinting silver in the groaning of the streetlamps.
This was a song for her neck.
We wrote it in a hurry, gathering musicians out...
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs.
"Did that blade seriously just nick my ankle?"
Brody grabbed a stalk of grass and shook it in front of the step. A pair of scissors lashed out and bisected the leaf and receded into obscurity.
"It looks like Jiro's back." Myka pulled a long, desperate drag out of her cigarette. "Looks like the girlfriend thing didn't work out."
"Maybe the booby trap is to keep people out as they get it on." Brody coughed as Myka exhaled a noxious cloud in his face.
They skipped the step and carefully ascended the stairs...
Maggie knew it was only a matter of time before she was caught. It was inevitable, as certain as the rising of the sun each morning over India's beautiful river.
She wasn't cut out for this sort of thing. She KNEW that. But when she saw it there, dark and rich and beautiful she knew she just had to have it, come what may. So now she sat in her seat, shivering, sweat beading on her forehead as the plane taxied for a landing. The bag shifted inside her blouse, it's contents conforming to the shape of her body as...