(Photo: Duncan Kidd on Unsplash)
They were all of them going to the fair. But her.
She had to stay home. Tend the fire. Knead the dough. Rock the cradle.
She still recalled her dreams of growing up. The independence.
The folly.
She went from burdened by her folks, to burdened by her husband.
The dream now an albatross.
A wail rose from the other room. The baby.
Could have been her own dejected cry.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Dejected in 70 words
(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: 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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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: 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
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
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