For A Good Cause

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(Photo: Angiola Harry on Unsplash)

 

It did not matter that

The evidence was there for all

To see.

The crumbs.

The chocolate stains.

The broken shards of Nana’s cookie

Jar with

That crack from when Pawpaw drank

Too much and thought he was a

Knife thrower

But missed

The block.

It didn’t matter she was

Caught.

The child was

Unrepentant.

“Cookies are for eatin’, Nana.

No good letting them go stale

In that

Pot!”

 

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Unrepentant in 69 words

 

On A Treetop

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(Photo: Frank Eiffert on Unsplash)

 

Clear as daylight.

A cradle rocking

On a treetop.

No baby.

Thank God.

Or was there?

Was the movement the wind,

Or a small living thing?

She felt her heart flutter in

A memory

Of falling.

Heard a rustle and shuddered.

Ran for the

Ladder.

Climbed.

Swallows nesting

In the cradle.

Wide open mouths.

A child’s toy

Flown off a balcony.

Made home.

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of Treetop in 63 words

Adrift

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(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

 

A Word In

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(Photo: Hal Cooks on Unsplash)

 

It’s not my fault

That she won’t stop

Talking.

My side of the family has never been a

Chatterbox.

My papa says nary a word.

My mama can hardly be called

Garrulous.

It is your relations who are incessantly

Loquacious.

With them one cannot get a word in sideways.

A dinner lasts three weeks.

A quarrel, half a century.

So do not come to me

Complaining

About Junior’s wordiness.

“You should listen to yourself,” you say?

Shifting blame is something

Else

Your whole family does

Pretty much endlessly.

 

 

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekened Writing Prompt of: Loquacious in 88 words

 

Not Unprepared

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(Photo: Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash)

 

She was up all night.

Words crowded her mind. Piled atop each other, they kept coming

Impatient. Wanting to be picked.

Even the discarded ones pressed behind closed lids, trying to repeat.

A few slipped, surprising and lubricated by unexpected tears.

Of worry.

Of hope.

Of fatigue.

She tossed and turned. She wrote. She paced.

And still words tumbled. Filling every space.

In the small hours she ran the tub.

Soaked.

Prayed to soften the callouses

And the rough edges

Snagging nonsense

In her mind.

As dawn rose, she was bare.

Exhausted.

Script mulled.

Not quite ready,

But word lulled.

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Script in 100 words

 

Impressed

 

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(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

 

Sweet Redress

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(Photo: Hannes Wolf on Unsplash)

 

She didn’t mean for it to happen. Or she did.

She was no saint.

Sure, decades have passed. Much water under bridges.

A better person would have let it go.

Not Linda.

Not when Marilee had deliberately spilled nail polish onto Linda’s gown on competition day.

Twenty years of rumination.

Until … Marilee’s brand new car.

Linda gifted a young neighbor with spray paint.

An aspiring painter with bad aim.

Sweet revenge.

 

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Revenge in 72 words

 

Madam Toole

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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

 

Unlocked

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(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

 

Almost Viable

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(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.