Must you distort my intentions
to suit your moods?
What a monster I must seem
with your face laid on top
and your words rammed
down my throat.

I can think of a million things
I’d rather swallow
most of which are contained
within your multitudes.

The air is so heavy
that I cannot lift my tongue
to speak.

What good are these feelings
if I cannot dream?
Must you criticize
what you do not understand?

My bones are scarcely
worth their weight.
I’ve been dragging them
around this room all day
and they’ve yet
to prove their substance.

Loving you consumes
my heart wholly.
I’ve hardly the time left
to cry.

I’m tired of crying anyways.
I’ve made up my mind
to be a new kind of beautiful
the kind of beautiful that doesn’t
ostracize strangeness.

–

On a side note I have an Instagram account. I will still…

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #115

The prompt is to write something in a similar spirit – it could tell the story of a year or day or hour or minute – something that brought about a change in the life of a protagonist, family, community, nation or the world.

Life was such fun up to the age of 11.

There were music, dance, studies, games, picnics and all sorts of rides.

Some smooth some bumpy but having parents, siblings, and friends to share it with you is fun nonetheless.

Learning new things every day with friends was such fun which I attended every day till I was 11.

Life was like a nice dream.

Then one fine morning everything changed.

Suddenly I became a grown-up.

In my community girls were not allowed to play outside, laugh loudly or dance and sing after they reached puberty.

An order was passed to take…

Copyright Mikhael Sublett

He’s gone.  And once again we start to pick up the pieces.

There are egos to be restored, confidences to be rebuilt, dreams to be resurrected, wounds to be healed.

Like a hurricane, every year he bowls in, strewing gifts in his wake, invoking a past that we’d mostly forgotten, or at least buried so deep in our consciousness there was only the slimmest chance of revisiting it.  But he was always a man for the long odds.

“I’m proud of you all,” he said, leaving.  “Everything you are is because of me.”

No disputing the accuracy of that observation.

I so wanted to write something different to this, but you have to take what the muse is willing to offer.  And I had said I’d try to make it to Friday Fictioneers every week until the end of the year.  Rain, snow or hail, Rochelle always…

The hollow in your pillow,
is a void
still warm,
an echo of the dreams
we shared
but split in two.

You only saw yourself,
while
the only voice
I ever heard was
mine —

deluded in reflections
we are tethered
to the echo
of ourselves.

Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse

A short poem on the topic of Echo. Merril hosts at dVerse and I tried to use both the mythology as well as echo in a wider sense.
—
December 10, 2019

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #116

Image credit: Gerd Altmann at Pixabay

In Response To:

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #116 – Prompt 116:

in sunset of humility

bowing in surrender to

the Power that reigns

over world’s dominion

~ * ~

Photo Credit:  Gerd Altmann at Pixabay

Reenais the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge.

~*~

I am lost,

He admitted to himself

As he kneeled on the side of the road

The road sign in front of him was no help

The directions were lost to wear and tear of time

The light of the setting sun dimming with every passing moment

Soon it would be too dark to find his way

He prayed for a sign though he hadn’t prayed since younger days

Was it a sign? He mused later that lead him to his destination

A man stopped near him, called his name

He looked up into the eyes of his brother and got up for an embrace

“I was looking for you since…

Image credit: Gerd Altmann at Pixabay

The first thing I thought when I saw the photo was how beautiful it was, the magnificence of the sunrise up against the silhouettes of a human kneeling at the foot of a cross.

Humans connect with each other through symbols and archetypes, and most people would recognize these symbols as those of the religion of Christianity. The sunrise could be wordplay on son rise, which is what the religion is based upon: an earthly son of the one god rising from the dead after being crucified by a divine plan by god to have the son die as an innocent that has taken on the sins of all humans, past, present, and future. In order to be one of the few chosen when the innocent, now-divine son returns, each individual must drop to their knees and admit they are born to sin and…

Image: Gerd Altmann at Pixabay

It was that funny time of the year between expectation and waiting.

Around him, the time had come for preparation, decorations to be hung, gifts organised, the catering to be finalised as to who was bringing what and how much to make and bake.

There was also the spiritual side, not that in recent times he paid a lot of attention to it apart from the recognition of the significance of the occasion.

Life stopped in so many ways. It stopped because people took a breather from the humdrum of the everyday, put aside the cut and thrust of life, forgot for a brief time the urge to compete and took on the mantel of family and its importance.

It was a time of gatherings.

Friends.

Neighbours.

Family.

Across the road, the Christians sang Christmas Carols under the guise of a street party but was…