Tag: creative writing

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My August Childhood

boy in green shorts holding green hose

The water hose hissed and, for a moment,
The faint scent of sunbaked rubber
Filled the humid air.

Water tickled small, laughing bodies
Running barefoot through lush grass
Peppered with dried needle leaves.

They take refuge behind a rundown car
With cracked windows that resembled
A spiderweb glistening in the sun.

Prompt: Poetics: Sometimes August isn’t recognized by Sanaa Rizvi (from A Dash of Sunny) on d’Verse ~ Poets Pub. Join in on the fun by posting your response to the prompt via Mr. Linky.

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A Peaceful Summer Afternoon

potted plant and chair on balcony 
A shaded balcony
Chlorine wafting from the pool like a Siren's song
Children's laughter
Scrape of colorful chalk, tattooing concrete
Flowers in bloom
Red petals dancing in summer's light
Cyclist meandering by
Wheels cracking and spokes creaking
Wind in grass
Dried morning trimmings blanketing the walkway
Peaceful observer

Written for d’Verse ~ Poet’s Pub poetry challenge: MTB/Poetry Form: The Eleventh Power & More.

Funny story: I accidentally locked myself on my balcony while I was drafting this.

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A Treasure of Nightmares

person holding brown wooden chest

There is nothing more torturous than an agitated mind.

It’s like a treasure chest of unspoken riches

Selfishly guarded, every jewel meticulously analyzed

Accumulating over a short time–

Epiphanies, suspicions, fears, schemes–

Until it overflows

And the tortured realizes too late

That it was easier to open than shut.

Written in response to Patrick Jenning’s Pic and a Word Challenge: Experience ~ Pic and a World Challenge #313

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The Death Sentence

The year is 3020 and time travel is an execution method.

A few years back, it was a hopeful science experiment. “Humanity’s next great breakthrough,” said World Union’s propagandists. It earned them a few willing volunteers. A couple hundred if I remember right, but after humanity’s next great breakthrough turned its volunteers into charred corpses, WU couldn’t find a soul patriotic enough to step into a pod.

So these bastards used it to kill “criminals” or, better said, revolutionaries like me.

I wish I kept quiet. If I hadn’t written those papers. If I’d just stayed an obedient citizen…

My feet felt heavy as my handlers led me to my pod. My heart beat rattled my body and I couldn’t find the strength to walk anymore. Hands yanked me from the ground and tossed me into my pod. They strapped my arms to my seat and, when I was secured, pressed a button that lowered the pod’s door. It made a hiss as it sealed me in.

A priest stood outside and prayed for me, but I couldn’t hear him. Not over my loud breathing. Not over my heartbeat, now thundering in my ears.

The machine whirled to life when he disappeared from view. I felt it attack my body first, pulling me apart atom by atom, then it went for my mind and crushed it.

***

The year is 1985; I live in London with my wife, and I’m the first human to survive a time jump.

Credits
Photo: Clock by Splitshire via Pixabay.
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Our Escape

I want to be alone… with someone who wants to be alone.

Dimitri Zaik

We rented a motel room in a city far away from our respective lives. The moment we entered, we killed our phones then sequestered them in the old drawer – charging be damned – officially going off grid.

Two chocolates and a courtesy “Hope You Enjoy Your Stay” note sat in the center of the bed. We pushed them onto the floor and stowed away under the cold covers, embracing each other for warmth and, at some primal level, a need to belong.

But when our embrace didn’t scare away the loneliness that festered within us, we resorted to kissing it away.

Our respective decomposing worlds faded into a fog, leaving us alone.

Under satin sheets
Your soft snoring in my ears
Sheltered in your warmth

Credits
Photo: Morning Blankets by Cottonbro via Pexels.
Prompt: Solitude ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #257 by Patrick Jennings via Pix to Words.
Quote: Dimitri Zaik
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Leftovers

There was nothing like it. Their first kiss. The way they’d fallen in love. The loneliness that existed before and the salvation he brought. She could see a life with him: a house, a little dog, and maybe a child.

She dragged her knife against rigid metal, grating its edge to a sharp point. Well, she thought, turning to her victim subdued in the kitchen chair. His new girlfriend is welcomed to my leftovers.

Credit
Photo:Knife Kitchen Block by Congerdesign via Pixabay.
Continue reading “Leftovers”
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A Lucid Dream

I can feel her beside me when I close my eyes. If I focus hard enough, I can almost smell her shampoo each time our rotary fan turns its gaze her way.

I try my best not to disturb my lucid dream of her.

She doesn’t need to leave on that commute again…the one from two months ago when her car flipped and she—the real she—was taken from me.

If I stay silent, she’ll always be asleep beside me.

Credits
Photo: Sunlight inside bed by Becca Schultz via Unsplash.
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I Just Want a Happy Fucking Ending

I still tasted the last of the toothpaste. The minty feeling reminding me I’d have to replenish both bathrooms if there was anything left between bills and food. Hell, my family might have to go a week with rancid breath. That ought to be fun.

I shifted in my recliner. A torn, ragged thing I found at a thrift store that’s now even more fucked up since crossing my threshold. My kids—did I school them today? — have picked at the old fabric until stuffing jutted out like skin through ripped jeans.

I made a last futile attempt at comfortability, then settled in, ignoring the serrated leather cutting into my flabby thighs.

I fixed on my reading glasses and snapped open my magazine. For a moment I brood over not buying one of those tablet things that Renee has when I had the money, but soon think better of it. She could barely go two taps without Big Brother trying to sell her some shit she looked at two days ago.

But… I’d take the ads any day.

It’s better than this unexplainable dread that fills me as I leaf through the streaky magazine paper. Every page detailing how the world is falling apart. Hell, how it might even die before my own little shits come of age. I let the pages slip between my thumbs, fast forwarding through all the bullshit.

I just want a happy fucking ending.