(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
“I’ll take the summer off and get it done,” Meyer stated.
“It will take more than a summer,” Bette pointed out. She loved his enthusiasm. She liked half-done projects less. And this one mattered. Immensely.
Meyer’s intended retort fizzled at the look in his wife’s eyes. Love lived there. Love will have to live here, too.
“It has good bones,” he said instead.
“All it is, is bones,” she chuckled. “More likely we’re looking at two years.”
Meyer nodded. “We’ll liquidate other holdings.”
He wrapped an arm around his wife. “It is the right thing, Bette, to build this orphanage.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt: © J Hardy Carroll
(Photo: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)
Impressed, she was.
The image etched into her mind.
The angle of his neck,
Head bent over the
Guitar,
Engraved
Onto her heart.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of Engrave in 23 words
Photo: Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Madam Toole
Had a rule:
No one sitting
On her stool.
That chair
Was her
Jewel.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of “rule” in 16 words
(Photo: Deann DaSilva on Unsplash)
She knew she never should have let it run
Amok.
Should have kept it
Always
Locked.
But she wobbled
At the sight of keys under the
Rock.
It ran,
Before she could even feign
Shock.
For Sammi’s weekend writing prompt of Amok in 35 words
(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
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.
“How will I know it’s over?” Marika fretted.
“You will,” Jurena assured. A month older, she was already Bronzed.
“But …”
“But nothing …” Jurena lowered the edge of the tent and stole away. She wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Marika. Especially not tonight.
Marika listened to the silence. She shivered and tried to not think of Undine, her neighbor, who had never reappeared. Not all did.
The darkness filled her, thick as molasses. Her limbs grew heavy. Her ears began to ring.
Perhaps it was the magic.
Perhaps it was that drink.
Shadows entered, and Marika’s mind filled with molten spears, lava on dried grass. Encroaching. Coming near.
The fire lit her from within. The biting ants. The heat. The pain.
She screamed.
Perhaps she dreamed.
By dawn the elders had removed the gloves. The bullet ants were still.
Marika’s hands were bronzed with stings.
An adult’s.
Her childhood scoured clear.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Note: I don’t know why this photo brought up the image of a years-ago-seen video about Initiation With Ants video, filmed by National Geographic. But for some reason it did, and so I let it take me where it wanted to lead.
She packed her bag and stashed
Her dreams into the
Locket
That held them
In the past.
She shut the door
And sighed.
She must
Return to what she’d left
Behind.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Return in 31 words
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