Photo: Khamkéo on Unsplash
She squared her shoulders
To the wind
Words spinning past
Her ears,
And stuck her chin
Out
To the freeze,
Refusing to
Bow
Or flinch.
“So fierce,” he chuckled,
Unamused.
Survivor, she thought,
Of your abuse.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Fierce in 36 words
She set the biggest log in the center, then added odds and ends of driftwood to encircle it. The seagulls kept watch. Perhaps accusatory of her use of feathers.
“I’m sorry if it is one of your cousins,” she said.
A gull called. Her apology accepted?
She sat herself amidst the constellation, snuggled closer to the angel log, and drew her knees up to her chest.
“Sometimes a woman needs a circle of protection,” grandmother once said, a black eye contradicting or warning against errant timing.
“I am encircled,” she breathed into her knees. Her swollen eye throbbed.
***
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt: Lisa Fox
(Photo: Crissy Jarvis on Unsplash)
It was all about the math, he knew.
The breaths, the bites and chews and swallows, the number of small steps one takes, the flickers of their eyelids.
The sum of heartbeats.
It all seemed endless, but
He only had to endure one breath at a time.
A step after the other.
A blink. Each flutter against his ribs.
He dared not calculate, but still he knew it added up.
To when the awfulness will pass,
And life came back.
For the Weekend Writing Prompt of Calculate in 80 words
Photo: Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash
It has become
A flag
To wave.
An identity to wrap oneself with
As permission to denounce
The Other.
Casting off compassion for some
As if it would occupy the space needed for
Zero sum care.
History versions, auctioned
To the highest bidder.
Adulterated variations for a fee
In ratings, rage, and righteousness.
The molested Truth
Auctioned off.
Her hands bound
Her essence starved
Of air
And light
Or hope.
Her very humanity
Splayed
Vulnerable,
On the block.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Auction in 78 words
(Photo: Daniela Paola Alchapar on Unsplash)
They took the temperature
Of the crowd,
And realized they could
Twist skeins of truth into
Great blobs of knotted lies,
Then sell
As remedy
To now a fevered mob,
A distorted gospel
Bloated with melodramatic
Sighs.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Temperature in 37 words
We were not supposed to be afraid of them. After all, they were the articulate. Inquisitive. Supposedly enlightened.
It was the latter which scared us. The assumption. The expectation that if they have found their way here, they are automatically allies, and not foe.
And yet, they marched with those who sought to do us harm. They justified what should not be. They claimed superiority through intellectual high-ground dressed as morality.
A repetition. It was. Of the past.
And so we learned to hide. Our names. Our true identity. Our truth.
Lest we be hunted.
In the name of peace.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo credit: © David Stewart
They built their house on the other side of the fence.
The far end of the bay.
To stay away.
Others aren’t like us, they’d say.
We’re better.
People don’t understand that
They’re nothing like us.
They built their house on the other side
Of the fence.
Taught their kids to hate
The Others
For not being
Like them.
For being
Less worthy.
Less than.
They build their house on the other side of
The fence.
The town gawked
First
Then shrugged
Then came to believe
That indeed
They were different,
Even dangerous
On the other side of
The fence.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Rowena Curtin
(Photo: Jose A.Thompson on Unsplash)
Heartbreak is not a zero-sum game.
Pain is an and/and.
Destroying another is not a condition
Or proof
Or sign.
Being right or being wronged is not exclusive.
To anyone.
I will condemn
What should never
Be done.
I will not hate a People.
I will not celebrate harm.
I will not justify terrorism,
No matter the desired outcome,
Nor the hurting of children
In ‘payment’ for what someone has done.
I cannot see a space where rape or massacre,
Are ever, ever, a moral ground.
Heartbreak is not a zero-sum game.
Inflicted pain is not a battle won.
‘Collateral’ is not a term,
For anyone.
Babies aren’t worth less,
In another’s arms.
(Photo: Paul Zoetemeijer on Unsplash)
They were drawn in, unsuspecting,
By tales of glory finally
Being restored,
From a manufactured time of
Old.
Then kept in even when doubting
To go on,
Stuck, as it were, in
The eye of a hate filled
Maelstrom.
Spun, they were,
In webs of lies.
To leave they would
Need to give up
Pretended lives.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Maelstrom in 56 words
“It will have everything in it!”
Molly’s eyes shone in the dark and Gary was reminded of other eyes they’d seen reflecting in their torch beam. He shuddered.
“It couldn’t possibly have every thing,” he tried, just for the sake of argument.
She slapped his leg with her bare foot. “Don’t be daft. You know what I mean.”
“Chocolates?” A peace offering.
“Of course! Every kind of sweet!”
Molly’s stomach grumbled, and his answered. They were both of them hungry. At least the rain stopped so they weren’t quite so cold.
Perhaps tomorrow they’ll beat the garbage trucks to the bins.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Roger Bultot
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