He held out a shiny silver ring to her with trembling hands.
“I know I don’t have much to give you. I can’t even give you a real ring. But I swear I will give you my undying love and devotion. I promise I will love you and care for you for the rest of our lives.”
It wasn’t actually a ring. It was just a piece of tinfoil twisted and pinched into ring form.
She looked into his eyes and knew she believed him, he would love her forever.
She held out her hand, and the ring slipped on.… Read the rest
‘Almost, I can almost reach it,” she thought, going for a big can on the highest shelf.
She wasn’t surprised when she tipped forward. First her breasts hit the mixed vegetables, then her arms brought down the green beans.
And then she was in someone’s safe arms.
“Are you okay?” asked the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
“Fine, just a klutz,” she said.
“A short klutz,” he joked.
And that was how they met: a meet cute at a grocery store, when her clumsiness landed her in her dream man’s arms.
Their first kiss is near the crushed tomatoes.… Read the rest
“Do you want to keep this?” I asked, holding the box of Christmas ornaments.
“No, no room.”
I decided to keep it.
“What about these family photos?”
“No, it’s not like I’m ever going to look at them again. I probably forgot half the people in there!”
I keep that box, too.
I’m the only one who wants to hold on to our family, keep some mementos from our lives, our history.
I weep as my parents fill the dumpster with my past.
Now we have no family home.
We just have the memories so sharp they cut like glass.… Read the rest
My home reeks of flowers, and not in a good way.
There are just too many. Bouquet after bouquet that arrived like clockwork at ten every morning with a new way to say “I love you.”
I do love flowers, and I love the diamonds he gives me; I love the trips we take on his private jet to glittering cities like Paris and Tokyo.
But the flowers, they’re suffocating me.
It’s too much.
It’s too much to feel like you’re the center of someone’s world, too much to feel like someone’s happiness depends on you.
I don’t want this.… Read the rest
It felt like my guts had been turned into churning lava, and I could feel things I knew I wasn’t supposed to be able to feel.
So this is what it feels like when the breeze hits your organs.
So this is what it feels like when you’re dying.
The loud clashes, clangs, shouts, and screams were my world in the darkness, because I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
I couldn’t keep watching my soldiers fall.
Then someone knelt beside me.
Lieutenant Robinson.
“Is it bad?” he asked.
“This will be the end of me.”
“But you fought so well.”… Read the rest
Goodbye to all the people who said I couldn’t do it.
Peace out to those who never believed in me, and fuck off to those who have hoped I’d fail.
I am up at five o’clock every morning to put words on a page because this is my story and I want to write it and write for a living like I used to.
So be wary, writers, of putting all your eggs in one basket, because if the basket drops, you do, too.
Get up early. Get your butt in the chair.
Wake up your imagination and say hello.… Read the rest
“Write an English sonnet centered on the theme of the supernatural.”
Yeah, okay, I thought as I closed my laptop. No schoolwork for me today.
Instead I’m going to go out and enjoy the fresh air under a blue sky full of clouds and dance in the grass until I have to collapse there, lest I die.
I will lay and feel the breeze and smell the flowers around me, and hear the children laughing and the birds singing.
I can’t help but think it wasn’t writing to themes Shakespeare was worried about, it was missing perfect days like these.… Read the rest
They got him a new car every time he crashed his old one.
The kid was a speed demon, but they loved him no matter how reckless he was, no matter how casual he was with taking other people’s lives in his careless hands.
Trying to stop him was useless. He would have left home, he would have disappeared on them.
They would try to reason with him, they would tell him he might ruin his future (but not that he might die) and his only answer was:
“Speed never killed anyone. It’s becoming suddenly stationary, that’s what gets you.”… Read the rest
The day winds down and you know you’re leaving work only to go home to try to answer the daily question of what the fuck is for dinner?
You’re glad to leave work, but going home has its own stressors.
There’s the child who chews with her mouth open, loudly. There’s the boyfriend whose loyalty you question. There’s the job you love but you’re terrified of losing.
But you open the door and there are flowers on the table; vibrant, bright, ferociously alive.
Their scent is a welcome assault; you breathe and smile.
You never know what’ll be a daymaker.… Read the rest
