(Photo: Beth Hope on Unsplash)
She became an essence.
A sliver
Of her dreams.
Nothing near the child
She’d been, who played
A fairy’s magic theme,
With arms a fledgling’s
Widespread
Wings.
Life tossed her
From the nest.
Unhinged.
She a feather now.
A mere sliver
Of a being.
For the dVerse Quadrille challenge of: Sliver
(Photo: Molly Blackbird on Unsplash)
They say she gets to choose to be obedient, or face the consequences.
They say she gets to choose to accept her fault, or be blamed anyway.
She gets to chew on what she’d done. Even if it was done to her. It is still somehow her doing. Her consequence. Her crime. Her punishment.
She cradles what is left of her. Tucks it away. She will not be allowed to be. Or flee. Or seek a help. Or have a voice. Or make a choice. Not really.
It does not matter what she needs. It never did.
Her body just a vehicle for others’ machinations. An incubator for others’ agendas.
The growing despair is meant to put her in her place. Clip her wings. Keep her there.
She never mattered. No matter what words they pretended to say.
She gets to choose what they say she must do. Any other path is deemed a sin. A wrong she does.
She has no right to choose. They choose for her.
And if she dares seek freedom for herself, dares to try and claim back what is left of her body, she’ll be, to them, a killer.
For Linda’s SoCS prompt of chews/choose
(Photo prompt: Brenda Cox)
She saw the red bus nearing. Her eyes stung. Must be the jet-lag and little sleep. Home seemed far. Unreal, almost.
Or was this home?
She pressed her bag against the fullness in her chest.
This question was part of what she’d come all this way to explore.
The crush of people carried her onto the vehicle. Up the staircase. To the top.
She leaned into the seat and let the sounds of a language she’d forgotten wash through her. Awakening belonging. Remembering despair.
She’d been four when her adoptive parents came.
One day she belonged here. The next, nowhere.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Mama said it would be “an adventure.”
Lizette knew this meant no argument. No whining. Mama needed “Mama Time”.
“Just the weekend,” Mama said.
Lizette knew this meant at least a week. Till Mama grew tired of her new Beau. Or the Beau grew tired of Mama.
Did Uncle Ronnie know Mama’s language? Will he care?
It was dark when they arrived. Light flickered in the cabin’s window.
Mama let her out. Told her to knock. Drove away as the door opened.
Lizette shuddered. Entered. Gasped. Sighed.
The chandelier tree. The moose. Her uncle’s smile.
She could stay a while.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Alicia Jamtaas
(Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash)
Her legs were lead.
Her arms were stone.
She could not take another step.
The weight around her neck,
Shackles
She could not
Discard.
She was so tired.
But she’d gotten them away
And he was breathing still.
So she shifted the child in her arms.
Walked on.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: tired in 48 words
She stood at the back and tried to make herself as small as possible.
Not easy, with her stature and attire.
Still, she hoped the shadows would afford some obscurity. Bad enough to be made to attend and be tallied. It would be worse to be noticed. To be named.
The speakers roared. The bands played deafening propaganda.
She stood. She clapped. She swayed as necessary.
She stayed alert. Her life depended on it.
But in a corner of her mind, she was a child still, pumping feet toward a blue sky. Still free. To believe. To think. To be.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Ted Strutz
(Photo: Laurenz Heymann on Unsplash)
They would have gladly helped.
If he had let them.
If only he had found
The key
To what his dreams
Put forth.
If only he had known
How to identify
What were so many
Opened doors.
Instead, they watched,
Helplessly muted
To his ears,
As he fumbled,
Lost,
Amidst a maze of what
Were to him
Opaque,
Endless,
Walls.
Their lifelines loose,
Adrift
In the current
Of his
Half-formed
Words.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Key in 71 words
She tried. But still she could not see.
Not the way she should have. Not the way others expected her to. Not how they could. All crisp lines and sharp edges.
There was no focus to her sight. No defined hues.
No boundaries.
No wonder others thought she had no need for any.
She used to think it was her fault. Her eyes a reflection of failure.
She’d seen a doctor since. In secret, but at least this one was hers to hold in confidence.
Her optic nerve had never fully formed.
But her heart, she now knew, saw perfectly.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
They didn’t know when Power would return.
When they’d be allowed to leave.
Only that it would have to.
Because it had been promised. And they’d been raised to listen. And believe.
The grid was down. The streets were bare. The shelves that once were filled to the brim were naked in the lanterns’ glare.
It mattered none.
When they had faith.
Power had said, before he left, the back of the car packed with goods he “had to take to the needier elsewhere,” that they were meant to wait, “indefinitely, if need be.”
An test of faith.
Till death.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
(Photo: Gabriel Jimenez on Unsplash)
She was almost there.
The core of her was almost
But perhaps not quite. Viable.
It took so much of her. To form. To build.
To be.
To sift the valued from the wreckage.
The meaning
From the hurt.
That there was little left.
Yet.
For viability.
Nonetheless it was still in there.
Nascent. Waiting.
For the rain.
For the sunlight.
For the nourishment.
For what had already sprouted and was on its way
To the life
She was.
And could
Sustain.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Viable in 82 words.
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