Adversity

Encircled

Na'ama Yehuda Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , 61 Comments

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

The Math

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

(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

Points of Light

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 21 Comments

 

“They will not come.”

Mara stilled her neck from shaking. Gabrielle did not need confirmation as much as she needed hope. “Oh, but they will,” she soothed.

Gabrielle shifted and sighed in half voice, half moan.

“Are they coming more frequently now?” Mara inquired then laughed at the teen’s raised eyebrow. “The contractions, I mean. Not the others.”

“They can all come once and done,” Gabrielle sputtered between clenched teeth.

Mara chuckled but her eyes searched the darkness. Gabrielle’s stamina would not last long.

A light wavered in the distance. Became three points. Mara exhaled. Finally, the sign of hope.

 

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Lisa Fox

Topsy

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , 35 Comments

 

 

She never understood the urge to willingly turn one’s world upside down and put one’s fate in the hands of minimally-maintained machines in the hands of minimally-trained college students who were likely more intent on ogling potential mates than on guaranteeing an in-one-piece return to gravity for riders.

Life was plenty adventurous enough without deliberate topsy-turvy.

And yet, there they were. Lining up to shell small fortunes for misery.

She stood at her window, nursing the weak tea that would have to do till the end of the month, and watched the roller-coasters hurl a screaming world around.

 

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Mr. Bink

 

For The Sake Of

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , 15 Comments

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(Photo: Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash)

 

There might not be an end to this, she thought.

It broke her heart to even think it. For she did not recognize herself in this thought. This worry.

Hardship was a familiar thing. She understood struggle. The effort of building muscle against force.

She knew suffering.

But not this. Not the deliberate harm.

Not the anfractuous path of sorrow inflicted purely for the sake of pain.

She knew not what to do with that.

Other than build a barrier around her soul to protect what was left, grieve for the need to do so.

And hope.

 

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: anfractuous in 97 words

 

Memory Lane

Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , 16 Comments

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(Photo: Juho S on Unsplash)

 

She had promised herself to never revisit those times. The best forgotten ones. And yet there she was, a small child in her lap, embers glowing in the hearth, the dog worrying a burnt crust, and her mind meandering down memory lane.

“I was where I am when the snow began,” she started.

The child shifted a knobby knee into a rib, and a cold replaced the sweet weight in her lap. Stolen coals, they were then. Collected under pain worse than whipping if she was discovered yet at the risk of frostbite and no dinner if she did not. She’d secreted an apron-full before the snow began, coating the path, incriminating every footprint.

For the payment, she bore scars.

“I was where I am,” she pushed an unneeded log into the fire. Just because. “Yet now the snow scares me none.”

 

 

 

For dVerse Prosery challenge

Prosery prompt: “I was where I am
When the snow began”

From “The Dead of Winter” by Samuel Menashe. Full poem here.

 

 

Every Thing

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 42 Comments

https://rochellewisofffields.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/kid-in-a-candy-store.jpg

 

“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

 

 

Uncle Ronnie’s Cabin

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 30 Comments

 

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

 

Her Vision

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 43 Comments

 

 

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

 

Hanging In

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 18 Comments

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(Photo: Ray Fragapane on Unsplash)

 

They didn’t know then

Or still

What track life will

Bring.

Yet they hold on,

By bootstraps

Hoping

For just enough breath with which to

Sing,

To the sun

That would rise,

To the hope

That would

Cling.

Till dawn will

Another story

String.

 

 

For dVerse Quadrille Poetry challenge