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The SketchHe loses his first kiss in autumn. He's twelve, she's just turned thirteen, and at the time he isn't sure what all the fuss is about but knows how special it is anyway.The Sketch9 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
She's gorgeous, pale-skin, brown hair, dark eyes always filled with happiness and joy the way he wishes he could be. She doesn't want to be there any more than he does, and they grouse to each other about how they don't need a 'special school.' It's the first time he's worked up the courage to say it.
She carries a book too, just like his sketchbook, but she says it's a diary. It's hung with a little lock on the front and he jokes about it being the key to her heart, a littl
Rewritten RomanceI'd like to rewrite things the way they should have been. I'd like to believe that you were ripped away from me against your will. I'd like to start at the courtyard. That courtyard with the placid little pond and the moon gliding silently overhead. Let's say that it was jasmine clinging to the walls. And let's say that we were tranquil with wine.Rewritten Romance2 years ago in Stories & Vignettes More Like This
We were speaking softly to each other. Plans about the future. Dreams I'd been conjuring from the time I was a girl. I was murmuring my hopes to the quiet night when, without warning, your fingers found my open palm and brushed against it with gentle ease. The sweet zing lit my arm on fire and the
A life. - Draft OneHear me read it!A life. - Draft One3 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
We were thrust, unexpectedly, into a tumultuous and decaying world. I refused to open my eyes because all about me were tears and screaming. Her voice was clinical, cynical and cold. See no.. Hear no.. With a shy, initial grasp for breath I felt the tinge of sulphuric malignance infuse into my body. My body spasmed and my voice strangled out its first sound. What a sound. For my primitive mind it could have been enough to ward off my enemies. To purify the air and neutralise the suffocating hostility. It wasn't.
Sometimes they would laugh, which I understood to be hurtful.. but with a curious glance in their direction I rea
Close ReadingHow do you readClose Reading2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
a spiritual poem?
Listen for the silences
that resonate within the lines,
between the poet's words,
that set up sympathetic
vibrations in the secret depths
of the mind.
That which you might discover
lies beyond the amplitude of speech.
Puzzle-PerfectBold. Beautiful. Shattering. Screaming. Open.Puzzle-Perfect2 years ago in Emotional More Like This
Closed.
There's something tangibly, achingly desperate about you. Your words, your smile, your vivid dreaming that causes you to insist that I'm only another part of your imagination... that is, until the icy-sharp air bursts into your face and you remember your name, my name, the color of words. The truth. It's a little bit difficult to convince you that you're wrong nearly all of the time, that your reasoning is insanely driven by the misfiring neurons in your puzzle-broken brain that's malfuctioning half of the time and lost the other half of the day.
Nobody has ever come even halfway-close
Date A Girl Who WritesDate a girl who will argue with you over which brand of pen is better. Who needs more RAM on her computer because of Word files, not game files. Who has two bookcases – one for filled notebooks and one for other author's works.Date A Girl Who Writes2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
Find a girl who writes. You know it's her because she'll always have a pen and a notebook with her. Occasionally a tape recorder. She's the one who would have as much fun at home on a Saturday night with her computer as she would out at a party.
You see the weird girl sitting on a park bench looking engrossed in watching the people that walk? That's the writer. They watch people, how they act, they discover how
ApplesMya was dancing. She had on a beautiful, white dress that flowed when she twirled. Everyone was watching her, but without the usual expressions of contempt. They looked at her like she was pretty. They were awestruck at the grace and beauty of her dance. They looked at her like she was white.Apples2 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
"Mya, wake up child!"
Mya opened her eyes and saw her grandmother looking over her. She'd just been dreaming. She was still lying on a bed of thin straw and dressed in dirty rags. Mya danced across the room, still in a good mood from the rush of dancing in front of all the white folks in her dream. Her deepest wish, besides freedom, was to learn how
May 2011 Quick Fictions5/2May 2011 Quick Fictions2 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
The sounds in my head were better. They resonated like something physical, using drums like timpanis so I could feel the tiny vibrations gain waveform and strength. The sounds had colors too; thunderclaps were a dark blue undercut with a black that ate into them, and steamed and molded; voices were different depending on who spoke them. My mother's was green, lightning-jagged shapes gilded in yellow: "Don't growl at me! What do you think you are?" So it was a bad day. I pushed my face against my blankets and turned away from her, hoping to give her a blanket-rounded pyramid of thin shoulder. A pharaonic monument to the immortality of tee
traditionalismi am the unrequitedtraditionalism3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
optimism of a generation sunk
by love drunk parental units
who value friendship over authority
and teach their children
nothing. i am desperate dysphoria,
slicked along the spines of whale-men
and elephant-women who think
one more chip will stave off the craving.
i am gay humans in Uganda, low castes in India,
the disappearing middle class of America --
each shrieking in harmony to the swelling
wallets of the rich and moral-less.
i am the present, atrophied and apathetic
to the siren song of the future.
CartwheelsI stood on the front porch, heart racing. I clutched the railing with white knuckles, my fear fresh from the latest of many panic attacks. I struggled to breathe, slowly in, slowly out, just like my counselor had instructed. The therapy wasn't helping so far, and that scared me more than anything.Cartwheels3 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Slowly I started to hear the voices of people walking by, and I relaxed slightly. The normalcy of their conversations calmed me more effectively than anything else I knew. I kept the radio on 24/7 for that very reason.
When I started to recognize faces, I knew the worst was over. Mrs. Krane knelt studiously over her flowerbeds across the street, a
Time Goes to the MarketTime Goes to the MarketTime Goes to the Market4 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
Dawn Olmo
He buys a clock, but never
sets it; he doesn't know
what time to set it to.
Time doesn't use numbers.
The clock becomes
his adopted son. He
names him Rojo and
drives him to the park
on Sunday afternoons.
Time doodles the infinity symbol
on a piece of paper and
cries, "I love you, mom!"
She's here--goes on forever--but
never stops to visit. He takes
his angst out on people:
always leaving when he's most needed.
blackberry blisterstoday i was sitting on my porchblackberry blisters2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
when i felt a sting and warmth
against my palm.
i looked down at a blackberry
stained and smeared down the
lines that tell my future.
or maybe my past.
it made me sad,
but it also made me happy.
it made me feel like this was the last,
the last of my blood
pulsing out of my open skin
with its seedclots and all
and i put it to my lips
and i tasted my deep purple stain.
it tasted like April 18th, and it
tasted like the very edges of your mouth
and i smiled.
i smiled with lips that were a
purple bruised color.
and i laughed at myself for
thinking this berry was my blood.
for thinking that at a
how to eat a cupcakehow to eat a cupcake3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
i spread the contents of my lunch out with a flourish, crumpling the brown paper bag in one hand
carelessly, i glance down
and freeze
because in the messy crime zone that is my lunch, there lies a cupcake
an innocent cupcake with white frosting that swirls to a point
topped with a little thunderstorm of sprinkes.
mostly blue ones.
and for the next moment
i cannot breathe
because we, he and i, used to split a cupcake every so often.
especially when we had one of those days where we would feel like skipping through the halls and singing our hearts out as we went.
he loved cupcakes with white frosting and mostly blue sprinkles.
The Neverending MonologuesThey bicker, shouting at impregnable walls.The Neverending Monologues2 years ago in Philosophical More Like This
on nature and will3 years ago in Visual & Found Poetry
More Like This
The American Legion i met this guy called god. he sat next to me and my pint. he was gangly and dressed in a long beige bath robe, and had an unkempt beard. the slob. he sat in the right and i in the left, inquired about my family and i about his, but wouldn't shut up about his son. "the one and only" he says. i asked him how his son was doing, and he said "o, nothing between him and heaven." then like a seventy year old nun in the 60's he told me i ought to go to church more often. with all this religious talk i figured him a priest, but he said he lived upstairs. what kind of priest lives above a bar? i paused. well, maybe that does make sense after all. so iThe American Legion2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
all bags packedi thought maybe i'd see you thereall bags packed2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
when a slat of watered-down sunlight
came in through the curtains and
fell on the other ghosts. but you
weren't there among them. i couldn't
find you in all those grey faces.
i think you're probably gone by now
because there wasn't much to keep you here.
there's a lot of talk in ghost stories
about unfinished business, but you
put an end to everything
just like that.
PhoebeToday, she doesn't think she'll bother lying to herself.Phoebe2 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
She's fucking terrified. She doesn't know who she is or why she so desperately needs to know who she is. Sure, she puts on a tough face- little bird with clipped wings, trying to fly and hiding the evidence of any past falls. But she's weak, like a hardboiled egg not cooked long enough. Soft, her center is a half cooked yolk, and all you need to do is crack her shell.
--
She looks back in the mirror. Maybe if she were just a bit thinner (she looks past the dark hollows and protruding cheekbones), her skin just a bit clearer, her words sweeter and paintings better, she could smile wi
a thing with feathersMy semi-permanent lover,a thing with feathers2 years ago in Scraps More Like This
soldier-to-be,
laying on a deflatable bed
that has,
like the cool, clean scent of you lingering on my skin,
only six days left to live,
explaining things your dog will never understand,
like where you're going,
and why you won't be home after work anymore,
and how he'll have to sleep on the cold hardwood floor
and not tangle his bony legs with ours during the night.
When you hold his graying brindle face in your palms
and tell him you may never see him again,
I, sitting out of sight behind you, fight tears.
But he only stares, trusting, doggish, back at you,
unable to conceive of a day when your suntann
Three A.M.Three A.M.Three A.M.2 years ago in Urban & Spoken Word More Like This
Nine days in a city
Smaller in scale than the capital,
Though it reminded me of London.
We shopped in a building
Like an office block
For alternative lifestyles,
We bought nothing
But savoured every minute.
I recall the brandy that so aptly sent me to sleep,
Numbing thoughts and feelings
And the foul taste in my mouth.
We staggered through the town,
It was dark and, when sober, fearsome,
We were too drunk to care.
Removing a black vodka stain
With bleach from beneath the sink
That the night before
Made bad ideas palatable.
Returning to technical stimulation
That keeps us hooked for hours,
Oh what powers pr
Departures.I tell the quiet to sink into my bonesDepartures.2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
the way the music melts into my marrow
so the harmonics and the perfect fourths
may rest dormant in my veins.
The birdsongs in my lungs are
enamored of my breast; they
wait for late departures in the
train station of my heart.
Unfinished melodies and sonatas--
merely hiccups of my mind--
lie whispering in the paper-thin
walls between my ears.
Cold catches hold of me, my skin
to winter's skin as the last of the
swan songs nestles into the
darkness of my ribcage.
I tell the quiet to sink into my bones,
enamored of my breast; it
lies whispering in the paper-thin
darkness of my ribcage
Kismet Never had I looked upon an object with as much reverence before I saw her gray sweater. It grasped her narrow shoulders, the ribbed crewneck lunging at the base of her throat, clinging to her as you had, once, long ago. The thought of you wrapped up in her caught my breath, and kept catching, a shuddering reminder of how much you loved her. But you don't make mistakes anymore, you know who you are and where you're going. I love her sweater because you have the same one and neither of you know it, and I love her because you loved her, but I know she will always be your favorite one andKismet3 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Spring ThunderstormClouds gatherSpring Thunderstorm3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
above a shivering landscape,
and it's time for our lips
to cease the utterance
of empty words.
Raindrops find their way
through open windows,
and the drapes caress the wind
as my fingertips discover
the heat of your skin.
The sky ignites
between our lips,
and in your eyes I see
the universe.
Stars burning,
thunder rolling,
infinity forever shifting
between us.
Lightning strikes,
and our hearts are no longer
timid metronomes,
but a thunderstorm of early Spring;
holding eternity within
every drop of rain.
Sta.sh
