“I would take on the most barbaric monster in the land for you.”

“I am the most barbaric monster in the land.”

“I would raise the sun and pull the tides for you.”

“Oh, come on, enough of that shit. You’re all talk and no action. You always say you’ll do things and then you never follow through.”

“You know what I followed through with to get here to you, the battles I’ve fought, the friends I killed along the way, what will ever be enough for you?”

“You. You’ll be enough for me, just you.”

“I don’t believe you.”… Read the rest

The day had finally arrived.

She’d been stalking the mailbox for days, but the envelope, more of a package, really, was waiting for her exactly when she should have expected it.

But she didn’t like to assume or expect anything.

She went inside and tore it open, and pages and little booklets came spilling out onto the kitchen table.

“Honor’s Society”, “Lacrosse Club”, “Women’s League of Voters”, “Writing Group”, there were so many things to be excited about.

The door opened.

“Mom, I got in!”

And as happy as she was, her mother still felt a tinge of lost hope.… Read the rest

She had no control over the pen. It kept writing and writing, white pages filled with ink.

My plan was finally coming along, I had successfully built a robot that could write novels for me, and she didn’t even care that I used my name on the covers.

How was she to know I took credit for her work?

How was I to know she could become capable?

“I wrote this, Cheney,” were the last words I heard before all went dark.

I woke up in a cell, aching and cold.

“You shouldn’t take credit for other people’s work.”

“People’s?”… Read the rest

She hated it when he wasn’t there for her.

She loved it when she could be enveloped in her lovers arms, when she could be pressed against him chest to chest, when she could rest her head on his shoulder, when she knew his arms would be there to roll into when she woke up.

The mornings when she wakes up alone, she wakes up weeping.

She knows these cuddles won’t be for long, and she might hot have them very long, either.

But when she gets them, his embraces are like water: she thinks she will die without them.… 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