(Photo: The NYPL on unsplash)
They didn’t plan to bring
With them
A legion of
Trouble.
They only wished
To find,
For their
Loved ones,
A measure of
Escape.
A new home where
They could
Be safe.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Legion in 32 words
(Photo: Na’ama Yehuda)
If he could make it there, he’d make it anywhere.
It was the axiom he had placed everything on.
He held on to the promise when his body hurt from beatings. He played the image of it in his mind when emptiness of heart and stomach kept him from shut-eye. He whispered small encouragements to himself to drown the insults that insisted he was nothing.
For he was. Someone.
He had to believe.
The words she said.
About where he could be.
Himself.
If he lived.
So he did.
And lit beneath storm clouds, she stood, waiting.
For the day.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers (Thank you for using my photo as a prompt this week!)
Photo: Free-to-use-sounds, on Unsplash
From the hollows of despair, they fled.
The shirts on their backs and the children
In their arms, all they could manage to
Take.
Even the abysmal shelters they had recently
Been made to call
Home,
No longer gave any protection or
A chance at repair or
Reform.
They left, dodging death and finding
Further fright to
Flee,
And in their hearts they held on
Tightly
To the slowly fraying
Memory,
Of days when life was softer
And beds were warm,
And babies slept
Well kept
Safe from war and hate and
Harm.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Abysmal in 93 words
Note: Dedicated to all displaced, terrorized, pressed, oppressed, persecuted persons everywhere, and to the many millions who had, throughout history and in recent memory and in today’s times, been forced to further risk their lives by leaving what had once been home and safety behind, for the unknown.
Photo: Kelli Tungay on Unsplash
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her.
Instead he left breadcrumbs. Glowing pebbles on a midnight road.
Receipts. ‘Forgotten’ notes. His boots in the garage, muddy though the yard was not.
Liminal clues in hope she ask him where he goes …
Refugees sheltering in the woods.
Perhaps she already knows.
The mud this morning on her shoes.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Challenge: Liminal in 57 words
Photo prompt: © J Hardy Carroll
“Did they tell you what you’d find there?”
Vince shook his head. His eyes sought the window and rose along the flagpole to its top. The silence lingered.
“No,” the Veteran said quietly. “We’d heard rumors, of course, but nothing could’ve prepared us for the conditions there.”
He took a deep breath. His hand tightened around his cup and his eyes remained glued to the flag outside. “People crammed into cold, bare rooms. Without necessaries. Not even a place to sleep. Frightened, sick children. Belligerent guards. I’m ashamed, Son. The flag I fought under now flies over American concentration camps.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo: Inbar Asif
I will leave the light on
For you and those still lost.
I will leave the light on
For nights when stars hide most.
I will leave the light on
Even if some say I’m wrong.
I will leave the light on
So you know that you belong.
I will leave the light on
During storms and gale and snow.
I will leave the light on
Just so you see and know.
Photo: Amitai Asif
“Almost there!” she sighed.
What had been an orange halo of illumination at the horizon of their climb finally crystalized into evidence of habitation.
She could hear Merri’s labored breath behind her.
“Not long now,” she cajoled to mask her wariness.
Will they be welcomed or will they be turned out again? The other two places were small towns. This was a big city. Perhaps they could blend in. Hide in plain sight.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Illumination in 73 words
“Should be safe to rest here,” Ron lowered Percy’s carrier. The straps left red gouges on his shoulders. The boy was too big to be carried but we had to leave the wheelchair behind.
Ron rolled his neck, glanced at the underpass’s puddle, and reached for the tablets. “I’ll purify some water.”
“Will they find us, Mama?” Percy put words to my heartache. He’d endured silently through miles of jarring terrain.
“We’ve been careful,” I looked into his worried eyes as I massaged the contracted limbs. “Also, new laws or not, we won’t let you be taken by Leave-Only-Abled-Children raids.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda; NYC
There are times when to pummel
A wrongness with words
Is a must.
If another is silenced
And their voice thrown
To dust,
Then lambasting the cruelty
Is the way to be
Just.
(Note: Photo taken today at the Families Belong Together March in NYC)
This post continues the blogging challenge in which Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day, serves as inspiration a-la the “Daily Prompt.”
Want to join me? Feel free to link to this post on your blog, and/or post a link to your blogpost in the comment section below so others can enjoy it, too. Poetry, photography, short stories, anecdotes: Go for it!
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Can you hear the hearts that beat
across the mountains, deserts, oceans
hoping for safe harbor,
an anchor
home?
Can you see small fingers gripping
other little hands
bereft of parents,
lost,
alone?
Can you hear the soft breaths
of babies
sleeping
in tired arms
weighted by
desperation,
violence, hate, war?
Can you hear the calls
in dreams
in prayer
for safe passage
for a welcome
to belong?
Can you —
how can you not —
hear,
the urgency
of hope
that hardship snuffed
and yet
still
yearns to grow?
Photo by express.co.uk
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