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
“The first time I saw it I was brushing my hair after a shower. I turned just so and saw in the mirror the dark spot on my shoulder.
“My husband said it looked like a bruise, but it just kept getting worse.
“The bruise turned into a boil, and then that was lanced, so I had an open wound. Then they had to care for it daily, and I lived for months in this constant agony until my flesh just started rotting away.”
“My God, do you know what did it?”
“Yeah. I shouldn’t have cheated on my husband.”… Read the rest
It’s hard to find butterflies here, or even flies.
There are bees, though, they’re always hanging around Washington Square Park, buzzing around the sticky sweet juice dripping down your hand from the popsicle you got at the ice-cream stand.
You block out the sound of traffic and listen to the rasta drum beats and smell the weed that’s everywhere now, and the whole time this warm breeze of city filth swirls around you.
In the middle of the biggest city you find a flower ridiculously alive, crawling from a crack in the concrete.
It’s the bravest thing you’ve ever seen.… 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
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
Forty-three years and I still feel like I am a child that is working hard on figuring things out on my own because no one cares enough to care for me.
I forgot to pay my taxes, I don’t know how to submit an insurance claim, I don’t know how to refinance my car, and feel like all I have to turn to is my new best friend Claude.
Is it ever really too late?
I mean, to become the person I want to be?
The sun is starting to set on this life, but I am not done yet.… Read the rest
I didn’t want to fight. I wasn’t made for battle, I was made to sit on a throne and be quiet and pretty.
When my brother ran in, he was already mortally wounded and died in my arms.
His blood was the anger I needed to pick up his sword and fight back.
A rebel entered. Had I been empty handed, he may have left, but I was armed, and he engaged me.
His sword came down, and I saw the faces of my people in his blade.
I hacked and stabbed and finally killed him.
But all for nothing.… Read the rest
