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
(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
(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: 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 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
(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.
It wasn’t the hunger. Or the cold. Or the worry that their bruises won’t have time to heal before another layer made lace of the colors on their skin, to serve a lesson in horror and morals for their kin.
It was, more than anything, the despair.
The utter loneliness within.
The feeling that there will never be another way to be. Another way to live. Another place to be.
For the Commune was The Law, and The Law was The Faith, and The Faith was the whip and the rope and the cellar’s dirt floor.
The Law was everything.
Until.
That day when someone – who some later said was of the lost who were forbidden to be let back in – breached the fences. Ignored the “No Entry” sign circling the fields. Climbed through the grasses.
With a lens. And later, with the law.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
“He gets the room behind the bush,” Mama ordered.
“But Mama,” Samantha tried, “we’re in the country now.”
Mama shook her head.
Samantha swallowed a sigh. This was the middle of nowhere. No neighbors. No roads. Old growth all around. Barely a dirt path to the cottage from behind the barn.
There will be no arguing with Mama.
She caught Daniel’s eye. He did his little special wink at her and she wanted to cry. He was comforting her even though it would be he who will be stuck in a room with barely light and zero view.
His eyes flicked toward the barn, and she understood — at least in the house he’d be warm, where she could keep an eye. At least Mama wasn’t hiding him in the barn.
Mama could not stand his disfigurement. Reminder of the fire she did not tend. The baby she let burn.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Photo: Markus Spiske on Unsplash
You are not welcome.
Here.
Or anyplace that we hold
Dear.
You are unwelcome
Here.
Because you lack
The right color
Or veneer
Or gender
Or conviction,
And because you have far too much
Proclivity toward
Fear.
You are not welcome.
Here.
Though if you come,
Subservient,
Kowtowing
To us
Year by lingering
Year,
We might allow you
To remain
As long as you
Humbly
Adhere,
To our need to aggrandize
Our wrongs,
And as long as you
Declare you will
Never rise
Above a state that
Holds us as
Premier.
Note: Dedicated to all who fight ingrained injustice, racism, hate, brutality, and the historical realities of too many who bolster themselves by believing they are somehow ‘premier.’ For the record, there is nothing ‘supreme’ about anyone who claims ‘supremacy.’ There never was.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Unwelcome in 91 words
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