My word muscles are stiff. My writing bones ache. The prose reads like a bruise.
I burst bored air through my lips, upsetting the dust on my keyboard.
I see a tangerine, withered in the shadow of an orange, withering; dust on the hand sanitizer; a rubber band ball in a novelty stein; an orgy of paper clips; surrounded by colors, none too vivid, the only highlights are the highlighters.
The building I thought they were slowly constructing around me is being stripped as bare as a gazelle felled by a lion, shred by hyenas, cleaned by maggots.
I wasn't...
"Everyone is a sun," he insisted, but no one was arguing.
"Every dog has his drug," he affirmed, and they all agreed.
"He's an unusual kid," I decided, and they all agreed.
"Everyone is a sun," he repeated, adding, "but not you," and he pointed his peanut butter fist at me.
The sky was hazy and blue, like the sun in a balloon, and the road was cold and icy.
I uncoiled my hand-knit scarf and decided to wait for the moon.
But I call it "swing theory." It's sort of an uneducated, improvised explanation of how everything clicks. How one digs the atom. Why one gets so coo-coo for photons. What hip event is on the horizon.
It's crazy, baby. Quantum bums.
My hand disappeared a week ago. I was rolling out a sheet of cookie dough for the kids. They come home around three and I like to have something warm baking for them. It makes me feel more useful and it's good that kids end their day with something sweet.
I was rolling the dough. Chocolate chip, I think it was. And my left hand just wasn't there anymore. The space where it was before was empty now. I didn't scream or cry. I'd gotten used to missing things. I figured this would be the same.
I had another hand...
I dream of beautiful things, of sunshine, of laughter, I dream of family. These dreams always manage to find their way into my pen as I write and turn themselves into words on the page. The sharp contrast of the thick, smooth, black ink on the creamy, soft pages makes a perfect place to display all of the beautiful words. Each of the letters are shaped perfectly round and as I read, they serve another purpose. As I read, they become paintbrushes and skilled artists as they begin to paint stunning pictures in my mind. They paint pictures of a...
Can I survive? Am I really as strong as they think I am? They all think that I'm some prefect little girl who is strong and mature enough to keep her head and endure anything all by herself, but am I really? I just keep searching for an elusive escape that doesn't exist, I keep praying for answers that I know I will never find. Why don't they see my cheeks, burned by the tears? Why don't they hear the screaming of my heart as I live my life? They don't because I don't let it show. I can't let...
The cannibals were behind bars strong enough to keep lions contained. They were the newest attraction at the zoo. You could hardly see past the sea of people to what was inside the enclosure.
Up! I demanded.
My father put me on his shoulders so I could see. There were four. A mother and a father and two children who were too small for me to tell if they were boys or girls.
The mother smiled at me in what I thought was a friendly way, exposing teeth that were sharp and wicked looking. Her face had two long streaks...
I was studying in science class when he came up to me. He slowly sat down next to me and asked me for help with a few questions from the textbook. "I need to hear someone explain it to me." He was begging now, but I knew that he understood the material. "You tell me. You know the answers, now teach them to me." I was trying to get him to put his thoughts into words and sort them out in a way that he could remember. And then he looked at me with his soft eyes and said, "But...
They say that I come from a family of heroes. And I suppose that is true. Uncle George, who rescued an entire family from a burning building. Cousin Bethany, the dashing soldier. Cousin Allister, who sailed his boat up river and discovered the Lost Tribe of Allawak. My father, the boxer and revolutionary. Great Aunt Marya, who sang so sweetly that she brought down the Monster Carescu, him and his entire government. Great great great Gramma Florence and Granpa Sidney, who together fought brigands for some queen in some other country. They were quite dashing I am told. As others...
He was on edge today, I could tell. The whole drive over to the crime scene he was quiet. He is never quiet unless is trying to solve a case in five minutes, his ex-wife is being a pain in his ass or some thing more sinister was on his mind.
We crossed the holographic police line. It recognized our badge numbers and IDs instantly. These things save so much more time than that old, shitty tape we used years ago.
He knew who to talk to, and walked right up to the officer in charge.
"We got this boys,"...