Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
Is there anything worse than the perception of judgment?
Negative judgment specifically. Do we all go through our whole lives trying not
to be scolded? Afraid of the schoolmistress of the mind? It’s a play on
paranoia. A whole system made to destroy you.
Sleep in the bed you make. Even if it is just twisted
blankets in your mind, the flotsam of a life unkind. And fuck all of that
bullshit noise besides. I’m not trying to win the black fingernail polish
award. That’s not what I’m here for.
And things are rough all over. It kills me.
While I feel put upon in my relatively simple life,
kids die of cancer. People get raped and murdered and their loved ones wonder
why the fuck it had to happen forever.
It’s brutal - half of humanity walking around with different shoe leather. And
we’re supposed to get along.
Birds of a feather.
I have no right to complain about my pain. And yet it
is everyone’s right. But that doesn’t change the fact that my arthritis bugs me
and somewhere there is a sweet eight-year-old boy getting beaten bloody every
night. And we gotta live with that.
How can you make that right? How do you even try to
sleep at night?
And wake up and do things like make sandwiches and try
to bluff your way through life. Pretend you’re not bogged down. Strife. Strafe.
We are riddled with the bullets of a hell-bent existence. In for a penny, in
for a pound.
It’s fucked up, but it’s what makes the world go ‘round.
#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...
Brutal. Feels like getting hit in the face with a bicycle chain, but in a good way.
ReplyDelete"We are riddled with the bullets of a hell-bent existence." That's fucking perfect. Because we are. And your work reminds us that we watch out for others who are, too.
DeleteGrown from a mulberry seed,
ReplyDeleteswiftly into a sapling.
My tender fruit, bursting with flavor.
Squirrels, tanagers, and orioles used to enjoy me,
and scurry through my branches.
Until, the bluebird came.
Claiming possession.
Chittering and screaming.
Chasing them all away.
Callously refusing them access.
The she-jay builds a nest
that sits empty and bare.
Gnawing at my trunk, sharpening her wicked beak.
Tearing away the bark, exposing my inner core.
Scratching with wild claws
as she perches and struts upon me.
I endure this occupation, and the years age me.
The feathered tyrant ignores my offerings,
unwanted berries fall to the ground.
Mold and ants consume them.
This has the flavor of haiku, but with a deeper and fuller story. On both a metaphorical and a real level, this is painful and well written.
DeleteI agree. And I have a healthy and respectful fear of corvids. :)
DeleteThere are places you must go alone, where no one can be with you. The death of one you love is one such place.
ReplyDeleteYou begin the journey together, perhaps holding hands, perhaps just being in the same room, but in the end, each of you follows a different path, to a different finish line.
You say goodbyes, promise you’ll see each other again, promise you’ll never forget, and then one of you closes his eyes for the last time, and one cries his eyes out.
It is the way of life. It is the way of death.
He was newly homeless. His family said he needed to leave, and the only place he had was his car. He took his two cats with him, and when he spen his last ten dollars, it was on food for them. The litter box fit neatly on the passenger side. The food and water bowls on the seat.
They waited each day for night to fall, and the cats made their clicking sounds when the night creatures came out. The glass in the windows confused them. It was an invisible force shield that kept them safe and separated from those who might make them prey. It blocked the scent of the dangerous things, so they slept lightly, depending on sight and sound alone.
But it was not monsters of the night that did them in. It was hunger. It was fear. It was hate. And the blood of the three is on the hands of those who did not see them, who closed the door, who said it’s time to go.
The rangers found the bodies in springtime, when the snow had melted. Frozen, bound together by love and ice.
There was no obituary.
Oh. That is the reason that the dictionary has a word like 'poignant'.
DeleteAnd the imagery of that next to last paragraph. Tears....
Well done.
I concur. And there is a really cool balance to this piece before the tipping point. Well played.
DeleteCan you imagine how hard it is to be Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Especially when she’s tucking in her three kids at bedtime?
ReplyDelete“Honey, did you brush your teeth?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is the toothbrush not wet?”
“I think we can agree that I deserve your trust.”
“You know if you don’t brush your teeth you’ll get cavities.”
“Fake news. Chinese just want to sell more toothbrushes.”
“Why did you lie to Mommy?”
“Didn’t lie.”
“Did, too.”
“I was just being a pokeperson.”
“You know liars go to hell?”
“Lotsa people in hell need pokepeople.”
“Don’t you want to spend eternity in heaven with Mommy and Daddy?”
“That means I could have your job?”
“You can be anything you want when you grow up, sweetie.”
“Even a Democat?”
“Now you’re just being silly.”
“Your boss doesn’t know much about animals.”
“He grew up in the city...”
“Everyone knows you don’t grab kitties. You treat them nice and wait for them to come to you.”
“Oh honey, look at the time. Do you want me to tell you a story?”
“Yes, please.”
“Which one?”
“The one about the ugly girl who gets plastic surgery so the orange king will love her.”
Nope, it’s not easy being Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Ouch! This is funny and wicked.
DeleteThe sunrise that morning was neither more nor less remarkable than any of the 21,915 sunrises which preceded it. It was glorious in its colors, it was persistent in burning through the clouds, and it was predictable.
ReplyDeleteHe hadn’t valued predictability enough in his younger years. Spontaneity was more exciting, unpredictability was where it was at. Maybe if he’d met someone who was more steady, more reliable... but no. That wasn’t it. It was his own unreliability, not anyone else's, that brought him here, to this.
Grow where you are planted, someone said. But he had dug himself up from that safe place, the place where he might have grown comfortably old.
And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
When death comes, he hoped it be while he was doing something he loved. Let it be swift, like a lightning strike. Let it be an adrenalin rush, like knowing he would feed the cougar he sometimes heard crying at night.
But let it not come soon, at least not until his beloved dogs had passed. He’d already sworn to adopt no more. He knew it wouldn’t be fair.
And when he was gone, let the sun continue to shine, in this unreliable world, let it shine with constance and fortitude and patience, for all the unreliables in the world.
This is beautiful and sad and hopeful. And you made me bust out my calculator. ;) The narrator has MANY more sunrises in him, I'm quite sure.
DeletePart One today Two coming tomorrow...
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon, and thank you for calling the offices of Homeland Perversity. Your call is important to us. To continue in English, press 1, para la prensa española 2, knowing that your call is more than likely to be traced to your current location for quality control purposes.”
Beep
“Thank you for your patience. All of our operators are currently busy with other citizens. To help us help you, please enter your nine digit social security number, followed by the pound key.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I see you are a Christian. Very good. However, the number you have entered is incorrect. Please try again.”
He punched the numbers, more savagely this time.
“Thank you. You can speak to me in complete sentences. For example, you can say; I’d like to pay my bill. Or, I’d like to report illegal activity in my sector. So. How can I help you today? “
“ I need to talk to an agent. That son of bitch Johnson stole my food voucher.”
“To make sure I’ve understood your request correctly, you want to speak to an agent, is that right?
“Yes.”
“Please identify yourself by entering your 18 digit personal ID number, so that we may be better able to answer your concerns. Do remember your password is case sensitive, identified by making your capital letters with a star. At least one charcter must be a special characterter, further identified by following with a +. When you have correctly identitified you identification number, please press, the right arrow for Enter.”
His fingers trembling, he did as he was told.
“Thank you. Our estimated wait time is 22 minutes.”
Brown entered the speaker phone mode. The dark room fileed with the strains of “I did it my way,” a song incidentally, he had never even heard. His wife, Carmelita lay in the adjacent room, weak and hollow-eyed, sick with child. They had not eaten in days.
I'm looking forward to part 2!
DeleteA cadre of cartoon animals bounced about them, shedding showers of glitter and laughing like they were on helium. Palmer shrugged away from them, making himself smaller by closing his shoulders in and crouching. There was nothing unorthodox about him. He was determinedly old school.
ReplyDelete“You never thought about trying on a skin?” Bliss smiled, eyeing her partner and taking some small amusement from his discomfort. She knew the answer already, would have staked her apartment and her pension on it, but she enjoyed adding to his revulsion just a little. Just because you were friends and you worked together it didn’t stop you taking pleasure out of teasing one another.
“No. Not at all. How old do you think I am anyway?” He glared back at her and then his eyes followed the group that had now grown bored of them, finding little sport in his reaction. They were twenty yards away now and were harassing an older woman, the pre-Millennial thrashing about, trying to avoid them and failing. She’d be much more entertaining than Palmer had been. They’d probably follow her about for hours - or at least until they got bored of their game.
Bliss smiled thinly, refusing to be drawn in. She knew exactly how old he was; it was included in his records. She’d infused them before they began working together, the quick-shot download etching everything they’d contained in her memory in less than a second. She knew them better than he did, most probably. He would have refused the download himself, choosing to read the details off a screen, his stubbornness extending to almost all modern technologies. He was due to be retired soon but was determined to remain true to the traditional aspects of his role. The role of a community policeman had changed little since he began twenty-five years ago, even though the superficial aspects looked very different.
“Well? How about you?” Palmer was blunt, as he always was, and Bliss took a moment to relive her experiences of the actual-reality software that was still becoming more widespread, despite it being made illegal almost immediately after it had been released.
Holiday Blues
ReplyDeleteThe shadows of the trees defy gravity as they glide up the hill on snow and moonlight.
The full moon hangs there like a silver plate in their branches, bigger and brighter than any ornament on the Christmas tree. Its beams a soft blue glow over the icy landscape, the shadows inky scratches that will record upon this new page the first month of another year.
And I sit here, as unilluminated as a man can be when the gloom’s consumed him even as he’s absorbed the gloom.
Downstairs, I hear the children, voices bright as lustrous trumpets. Upon their timeless reveille, a spark floats up to this room, by this window, into this heart, where before all was darkness, save for the blue on the snow and the shadows reaching out
for me once more. But not tonight.
Tonight, their light’s found me and they’ve saved me once more.
We All Fall Down
ReplyDeleteA gentle snow has fallen
since mid afternoon and
I have not watched the snowflakes,
not a one. Haven’t focused on one
and followed its path best I can
to join the millions that rest
on this patch of mine-ness.
They hold no attraction, no sparkle,
nor relevance today. And that's not me.
But then, nothing gets me excited
these days. My mind is blank
as that new-fallen snow,
my spirit just as flat,
and I'm struggling so hard
just to get from sleep to wake
and then back to sleep,
in a lonely listless drift
with this hole in my hull.
I can't seem to shake it because
I can't quite understand it, and
I’ve no power to change it if I did,
save for a list of felonies
I'd need to commit. We should all
laugh at that line, but we never
can be sure if what we’re reading
is truth or the artful lie.
I lie pretty well, some say.
Maybe, if I get dressed and go outside,
I can lie again, this time on that
little patch of mine. I can look
straight up into the falling snow,
illuminated by the Christmas lights.
I’ll try watching my one flake drift
in its downward gyre, helpless,
to this frozen tongue, upon which
millions of words lie too,
in hope of an early spring.