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: 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
(Photo: Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash)
It was going to be the thing
To make all things
Everything that they were meant
To be.
A remedy
For all the wants
And dreams.
“Ah, but you will surely bungle it,”
His mother said.
And crushed his dream
Instead.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Bungle in 41 words
Photo: Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash
It has become
A flag
To wave.
An identity to wrap oneself with
As permission to denounce
The Other.
Casting off compassion for some
As if it would occupy the space needed for
Zero sum care.
History versions, auctioned
To the highest bidder.
Adulterated variations for a fee
In ratings, rage, and righteousness.
The molested Truth
Auctioned off.
Her hands bound
Her essence starved
Of air
And light
Or hope.
Her very humanity
Splayed
Vulnerable,
On the block.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Auction in 78 words
(Photo: Daniela Paola Alchapar on Unsplash)
They took the temperature
Of the crowd,
And realized they could
Twist skeins of truth into
Great blobs of knotted lies,
Then sell
As remedy
To now a fevered mob,
A distorted gospel
Bloated with melodramatic
Sighs.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Temperature in 37 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: Jonatan Balderas Cabañas on Unsplash)
They didn’t know what they’d find when they got there.
The note only said to, quote: “get your backsides to my place without a dally.”
One didn’t dally when it came to Gamma. Didn’t stop their speculating, though. The whole seven-hour drive.
They didn’t try to call. Gamma abhorred phones.
“The Devil’s in them things,” she said.
One didn’t argue. Now no one would.
She was in her chair. Waiting. Already cold.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of Note in 72 words
(Photo: Casey Horner on Unsplash)
They gathered in formation. Pressed close against each other, every atom tight, compressed, readied for flight.
The energy reverberated. Excitement climbed.
“On your mark!”
They huddled to the center.
Bright. Bright.
“Let go!”
Radiate out!
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Radiate in 35 words
(Photo: Paul Zoetemeijer on Unsplash)
They were drawn in, unsuspecting,
By tales of glory finally
Being restored,
From a manufactured time of
Old.
Then kept in even when doubting
To go on,
Stuck, as it were, in
The eye of a hate filled
Maelstrom.
Spun, they were,
In webs of lies.
To leave they would
Need to give up
Pretended lives.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Maelstrom in 56 words
(Photo: azha-ashiq-kxX4k2El9WA-unsplash)
Nothing for it. It had to be done.
He’d get in trouble, but that was part of becoming a man.
He took notes, fussed, planned.
The time to mark the hall has come.
He hid the satchel by the bed. Set the alarm.
Woke to sunlight and calls over the Intercom:
“Lucas to the office, stat.”
Lucas the archenemy is the new Hall Mark.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Hallmark in 64 words
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