Category Archives: Touching

JENNIFER L FREED: Married Love

Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , ,

You astonish me one day
by quoting poems I never knew
you’d read.
After all these years
of knowing you, I still don’t
fully know you. Who can
ever really know the inner of an
other? But
I know what it’s like
to be with
you.
And I like it.

Jennifer L. Freed likes her daily dose of 50WS, likes the challenge of trying to write with such brevity (she can lean toward wordiness at times!), and likes poetry more than she ever thought she would when she was young. She has other poems and a chapbook available at her website, jfreed.weebly.com.

CATHERINE MATHEWS: Kittens

Submissions, Touching, , ,

Years ago I told the gardener, “One cat is enough. Drown those kittens.”

Indifferent, he pulled them from the mother and fetched the bucket.

We watched them struggling in the chill water, pansy faces upturned, soft mitts flailing, frantic squeals dying away.

So long ago, but it haunts me still.

Catherine Mathews is a State Department retiree formerly stationed overseas in Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv, Athens, Frankfurt, and Istanbul. She is now living in Northern Virginia and writing about her life.

JASON L HART : Prodigal

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

Broke and broken, he returned. His father’s lavish reception did nothing to shake the demons chasing him.

The grace shamed him, the flattery embarrassed him, and the wine reminded him.

Let’s go back, they whispered.

That night, he left.

His brother scoffed, his suspicions confirmed.

His father is still waiting.

Jason Hart manages a Christian bookstore in South Carolina. He enjoys writing short stories in his spare time. You can read his other stories at jasonlhart.blogspot.com.

PHILIP ZUNZUNCITO SEQUOIA: Assertive

Amusing, Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , , ,

“Phooey to you!” I said to Russell. Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself and tell someone Phooey. “You heard me,” I added, a little louder this time. “I told you Phooey!”

Russell blushed and looked down at his shoes. “You’re such a big old meanie,” he whispered.

Philip Zunzuncito Sequoia lives in England. He likes the music of The Fall. He dislikes marzipan.

JOE RUSSO: Flowers

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , ,

I grabbed my keys off the kitchen counter and walked to my car, which was parked under the only working street light.

I wondered whether she would prefer a red or white rose, and why she would care when she would never actually see them, or anything else, ever again.

Joe Russo has been published on Linguistic Erosion. When he’s not writing he’s blogging. You can see more of his stuff at The Homo Whisperer.

DEBBI ANTEBI: Selfie

Amusing, Submissions, Touching, , ,

She posed for the camera, her smile just big enough to show the tips of her front teeth.

Tilting her head to the right, then left, she wondered which shot would make it to her profile page, how many likes it’d get, and when the world would finally notice her.

Debbi Antebi (@debbisland) lives in Istanbul, Turkey, and blogs at debbiantebi.wordpress.com.

MICHAEL COOLEN: A Final Concert

Submissions, Touching, , ,

Albert’s wife of 47 years was a concert pianist who loved her 1929 Grotrian Steinweg grand.

After she died, Albert moved it to the beach and placed her body on the strings. Floating away on the tide, the gasoline-soaked Steinweg burned quickly, and 260 strings exploded in a funereal fanfare.

Michael Coolen is a pianist, composer, actor, performance artist, and writer who lives in Corvallis, Oregon.

ANDREW D HWANG: The Unbearable Persistence of Memory

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

He still feels her warmth, the radiance of her smile on their first date, 6,622 days ago.

Compulsively, he relives the emptiness when the subway slowly pulled him away from her for the last time, 44 days later.

Would their romance have unfolded differently if they’d known he had Asperger’s?

Andrew D. Hwang is the author of his own fate.

TRACY GOLD: Her Boy

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

Her son took her to see the scorched husk of their old farmhouse one last time. He stood behind her as the salt smell of earthworms soothed her wrinkled skin.

In her eyes, a mud-splattered boy ran through the yard and into the house. “Take off your shoes,” she said.

Tracy Gold is a Fiction MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. She also works as a marketer, writer, and editor for technology companies. Find her at tracycgold.com.

BETH TILLMAN: It’s All I Can Tell You

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

An antibiotic left Mama almost deaf at 92.

Long distance I call about my son’s report card.

“He’s playing the recorder? Wonderful!”

More misinterpretations follow.

Frustrated, I yell, “I love you!”

She answers, “I love you, too.”

We have that: three words rattling at the bottom of the pill bottle.

Beth Tillman has learned not to rely on the word count tool in her document production software to give her fifty. Some things can’t be delegated.