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daughterI find her in my kitchen, one ordinary morning with the harsh winter sun tipping full through the window. I haven't seen her for six months, and yet here she is, bruised knees pulled up under her chin, the light pouring through her hair like dull bronze. Despite the cold she is only wearing shorts and an old gray t-shirt, two sizes too big. Upon hearing my footsteps she looks up from picking at her nails, covered in chipped black polish, multicolored threads and silver rings slipping down her wrists. Her hair is tangled and long; longer than I can ever remember, and she tucks it behind an ear studded with piercings that glint in the dark stradaughter3 years ago in Urban & Spoken Word More Like This
the art ofit was too late;the art of2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
far too late,
by the time my gaze found his
across the dim and drunken
tangle of a scene.
his eyes were dark, the color
of burning wood and
dust in a foreign country, the
kind of eyes my mother taught
me to fear, and rightly so;
i could already feel his
handprints welling in a
&#
ten reasons whyten reasons whyten reasons why4 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
i can't write:
1.
i can't write because when i do i
take inefficient showers and get in
with all my clothes on and sit there
like an environmentalist on strike until
my jeans are soaked all the way through
2.
i can't write because
when i do i tell my cat, bonnie,
that her name is really beatrice and
that she is descended from a long
line of cat-queens and one day her
real family will come and claim her,
and that's really not very nice of me
to lie to her like that.
3.
i can't write because when i do i don't sleep
because there are all kinds of spitting
things waiting in the dark full of words
and words
lost and foundwe are awake.lost and found3 years ago in Introductions & Chapters More Like This
we are awake in the way that everything is dark and smells like airports and fluorescent lighting, in a way that feels like long journeys and bad coffee. we are awake. i kiss your lips and you taste like powdered sugar and winter.
we are awake at 4 am because it is cold, and because we have to be.
the car starts on the 3rd try and even though the temperature is near freezing you roll the windows down and the night crashes in, chapping your lips and tangling my hair in long, cold ropes. you hum a little in the driver's seat and i can hear great expanses and guitar strings and a jealous acoustic melody that stirs somewhere just
room 211there is a boy and i say this, notroom 2113 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
because he drives too fast through
the foothills in the raw of evening or
because he runs with the sundogs
in the latest rays of the afternoon
light, no -
i say this because he is dying
and in a way, that makes him just a
little more alive than the rest of us
and
oh God he breathes and breathes and
i can see eternity and the rise and fall and
rise of each rib underneath his skin
and the scrape of oxygen makes me think of how
i never kissed the place on his chest where
the demon now rests its bony head and
still, i cannot say
goodbye
griefmary sleeps beside me, it is morning; we aregrief1 year ago in Free Verse More Like This
dream-sunk and tangled in her quilts
honey warm and bathed with sun, we are berry-stained
and slow-breathing, lips purple
from last night's wine -
it is morning; we are softened creatures
and the light has come to hold us.
mary's phone is a wasp, a bramble, is a vaguery that
we cannot be bothered with. it is morning and
mary's phone is wrathful, insistent, needling us
into a sluggish consciousness. we break the
surface without grace or tact and
it is morning, and he was just here
he was right here and he was breathing but now
he is gone; he has passed through, passed
into the other,
Written Love Italic represents the inner depths of our emotions, an endless well of truth. Within lies the rawest image of the self, the naked reality of vulnerability, doubt and discovery.Written Love4 years ago in General Fiction More Like This
Will I ever find love? Am I destined to be alone forever?
It also depicts instant sparks of thought, blurted words mute to the world.
She’s cute! I wonder if she could ever like someone like me. Did she just smile back at me? Was she being polite, or…?
Bold equals bravery, chance and gamble; the lion heart in which shaky words express daring suggestions, challenging the fate of solitude.
“Want to go for a coffee sometime?”
“Can I c
bring may flowersxbring may flowers2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
The first time I met May she was crying simple, petulant tears, because she never got the flowers April promised her. I took her hand, so small it was nearly childlike, and promised that before it was all over she'd have so many blooms; azaleas and orchids and dogwood blossoms, that she wouldn't know what to do with them all. Her smile was so bright I almost felt bad making a mark on that perfect skin, but she offered her arm without hesitation and I drew a line through the first box.
xi
She was pretty, in a plain sort of way. There wasn't anything special in the tilt of her jaw or the curve of her spine, but there was something about th
untitledon our last night on earth you held my hand so tightlyuntitled2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
it felt like every promise a boy ever kept to a girl. you
smiled down at me, lion-maned and strong-boned, hanging
constellations and broken guitar strings in my hair.
we talked until our voices were frayed at the edges, bodies
twining like rivers in the quiet of your bedroom. you made
me so beautiful i could hardly stand it, and so broken i
could hardly breathe.
the next morning you stumbled into wakefulness with a sigh,
arms tightening around me. you pressed your lips to my neck
and i felt the smallest of words escape: stay.
in that moment, i knew -
To Dream of FallingI dream of falling.To Dream of Falling3 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
It's not a dream common to angels. After all, we have a pair of wings--or two or three--and we can use them. We float upon the air, dance among the stars, shape the clouds with our breath, and so on. All that lovely wordplay to describe an indescribable. A joy, a graceless power. Flight.
Humans dream of it often, I am told. It makes sense. They have no wings save for what they create with their hands. Airplanes, hang gliders, helicopters. Kites. They are obsessed with the sky, more so than the angels themselves, many of whom will fly three thousand miles rather than walk across the street.
And yet I dream of f
Can't Go Home Again My name is Jacob Mullins. I just turned 24 last week and got a phone call from my father telling me to come home. Now, as I get out of my car and head up the walkway, I'm not too jazzed to be walking back into the house that reminds me of my childhood. It took me a year and a half to move into an apartment and get a decent job and now I have to take a leave of absence to take care of the old codger before he croaks. If I lose my job over this there better be something phenomenal in that will of his to make up for it.Can't Go Home Again3 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
As soon as I open the door the smell of dust and sickness reaches my nostrils
the goodbye alphabetr.the goodbye alphabet4 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
i have three more piercings in
my left ear than i did the last
time that i kissed you, but that
is irrelevant to the fact that
our lips do not remember each
other's names like i thought
they would.
y.
your hands around my hips
sound like a song i tried to
sing once, but it never quite
fit.
a.
i tell you i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm
so fucking sorry a thousand
times a day but i'm starting to
wonder if i'm sorry for making
you cry or if i'm really apologizing
to myself for what i've become.
n.
i know that these are the
three sad staples of cliche
radio love songs, but i am
raw and there is nothing
else to say: 1. i
To Sleep, Perchance... It was raining. It was always raining. I could hear the neon lights hum in the windows of the bars and clubs as I passed by. Inside people were enjoying themselves, or thought they were, lost in their alcohol soaked daze. The neon painted colourful pictures in the oily puddles at my feet. I walked on..To Sleep, Perchance...4 years ago in Science Fiction More Like This
I pulled the collar of my coat up around my neck against the cool damp air. I needed to find someplace, anyplace to get out of the rain. These places weren’t for me. In these clothes, who was I kidding. Besides I didn’t even have enough f
until the mountainsi will remember you like this, always.until the mountains2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
i will remember you vital
and alive.
i will remember your skin wild as an animal
your body slung lazy and volatile, the
mountains in your shoulders and
summer in your eyes.
i will remember you in snapshot progression,
last night's snowfall prising reality from our grip.
i will remember your
hindsightShe called him Benjamin, because it soundedhindsight3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
strong, like a name that could move
mountains, or put food on the table for
a family of four.
He called her Hallelujah, because
it sounded like the way he felt
when her fingers brushed his cheek.
She called him Fahrenheit, Lion Tamer,
Redheart.
He called her Skinsong, November,
Firefly.
She was his prayer; thin breath on
freezing windowpanes and barefoot
secrets on the bedroom floor.
He was her safety net; wide eyes and
hands and promises in the coldest hours
just before dawn.
He called her Jumper because
she was always looking over edges.
She called him Wes because
that was h
Train taint constraint conceitTrain taint constraint conceit9 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
I
a train journey
night, she sits serene
on the opposite seat,
and her gaze drifts to
skybirds on thermals soaring swooping emotionless joyful.
advancing, the Inspector of Tickets, the Taker of Fares
in his municipal in his green and strident waistcoat authoritarian
stride peaked cap tickets please tickets please tickets
please,
she doesn't have a ticket. money
is alien-tainted hate-polluted isn't worth a damn
to her, let alone railway tickets.
she calls me to the open window – So
she jumps as the train starts to slow - So
she glides to the ground
and turns to me calling fol
A colorful life - 1His name was Bilious Green and if he was skulking around, then it was a cinch that Hideous Pink wasn't far away. They'd been dogging me for days, ever since I told our boss, Runny Palette, that I wasn't going to tout his numbers no more.A colorful life - 15 years ago in Humor More Like This
Bilious was a slob - his marking was as sloppy as his clothes and his personal hygiene was in the same class. Hideous always dressed in bright scarlet, which matched his whiskey-blown features to a T; he was scum, but at least he knew it. Bilious was scum as well, but the difference was, he thought he was real bright. I used to feel sorry for him ... until he stuck that shiv in my neck.
I'd woke up in hospi
Europe, Twenty-SixAnd there, to the west,Europe, Twenty-Six4 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
was a skeleton
that wasn’t made of bones
and carried no flesh,
stretched taut across the skyline
and motionless, as if taken surprise
by the sudden black of night.
We gazed across the city,
electrified, two small eyes
peering out from the bright skull.
You lifted your arm,
fingers splayed like dark eyelashes
to catch the bright orbs
of streetlights on the horizon
and cupped them in your hand,
like small candles burning,
flickering luminescent in the midnight pupil.
Why I always fancy the bassistThis poem has been temporarily removed in order to be submitted to a kick-ass anthology on the theme of rock 'n' roll. If it doesn't make the cut, it'll be back soon.Why I always fancy the bassist3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
MetaphorsWe tried to find a metaphor for the zombies.Metaphors3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
Emma said it would make things easier.
Then they ate her,
but we thought maybe she had a point after all.
There were the old standards, of course,
The ones they'd made movies about when zombies were still a morbid fantasy
And not roaming our streets,
smelling like cemeteries,
gnawing on stray cats and the homeless
and causing a threat to public health.
The zombies were
racial conflicts;
a commentary on consumerism;
the dangers of hubris
and an over-dependence on science;
fundament
FFM 3: The Great Process Silence spun out on the grassy hill, and the boy analyzed his grandfather for some sign of a reaction. Cholas granted the boy a bemused half-smile, chewing on the mouthpiece of his pipe.FFM 3: The Great Process3 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
"It's horrible, isn't it?" Tian finally blurted. "You're not gonna tell my mom are you?"
Cholas chuckled softly. "Calm down, boy. Calm down. It's only horrible if you act upon it." He glanced down to see if it helped. It didn't. "Look, what you're feeling is perfectly natural for boys your age. Grown men get the same impulses, but we're used to it, we don't let it torture us."
Trinity RoseAs a teenager, he was the artist who painted sunsets just to see them bleed their light through acrylics, dandelions beheaded in the frost to prove that you don't need hands to come out of the world scathed. He created beautiful women with their hair over their eyes and their tummies sucked in and rose vine tattoos sneaking up their thighs only because he wanted to show how you become tainted.Trinity Rose3 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
His theory: you look as helpless and fragile as possible and then you open all the windows and the doors and a violent man walks in, or a vengeful wind.
That came from a sixteen-year-old mind high on hormones and a lack of experience.
That came from
surface tensionshe strides like a sea walker,surface tension2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
each step rippling outwards
in search of a kindred being.
this echolocation finds nothing-
angry waves crash her delicate signals
now as confused as her footsteps
balanced upon the water's skin.
she falters and begins to sink-
a dangerous game to play Jesus
and not know how to swim.
soft hands slap against the cold hard surface
as she flounders for a grasp on reality.
her belief keeps her afloat
for now.
the water stings her face,
evidence of struggle and suffering.
her figure frames a distorted self portrait
as she crawls back to her feet-
on the other side of sane.
Patchouli GirlOn her front porch she had one of those little wooden step stools covered in potted flowers and various ceramic animals – a frog, a squirrel, a giant ladybug. It struck me as strange, something my dead grandmother would have had on her front porch. It was definitely not the porch I had pictured as belonging to my first one night stand.Patchouli Girl3 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
I was a step behind her as she fumbled with her keys. I had been drinking, too much. Probably. All evening I had chewed on my fingernails, hoping the Captain and coke would give me the courage to deliver the witty, flirty lines I had rehearsed in my mind all week. I'm fairly sure it didn't work.
The door
Sta.sh
