Despite how tumultuous our relationship was
my expectations of her were the broken promises I made to myself.
Yet gone forever, I often find myself wishing
for just one more angry phone call, one more harsh word
because in the end one of us would always say I Love You.
Debra Pascarella wrote this story.
His hands nailed to the walls
His feet in cement
His soul behind bars
Two kids entangled
Dreams broken, now nightmares
She drinks tea and smiles
She contemplates
Her next delicious move
Currents cross the room
His silent thoughts whisper
Freedom
Virtue answers
She leaves
But he still loves her
Patrick Yu aspires to write. He realizes he tends to touch on the darker sides of things. Maybe that will change.
The gunshot echoes through the alley.
“That’s what you get for leaving me for this pig!”
She falls. He drops to his knees.
“Stay with me, baby, please! Don’t go!”
Sirens echo in the distance; too late.
His sanity is leaving him. Laughter fills the alley.
His lover is dead.
Alaina Umscheid is in 8th grade and loves to read and play her french horn.
Melancholy clung to him like skin. An abusive father, a difficult childhood.
Into his cloud of sadness, she walked in. His silver lining.
The sun was just melting the cloud when death snatched her away.
A new cloud of sorrow. The tiny baby in his arms, his new silver lining.
Tejaswinee Barua is an Engineer by profession and a writer by choice. Visit Tejaswinee’s blog.
Cool grasses cradle my back. Fireflies flicker. I inhale the sweet, damp air, at peace for the first time in five years, three months, and nineteen days.
I could lay here beneath the black sky for eternity. Instead, I rise and kiss my husband’s tombstone before slipping into the shadows.
Mandie Hines writes in the Rocky Mountain region. She’s driven to create pieces of fiction that capture moments of human vulnerability. Visit mandiehines.com for more.
My chest pounded as I stared at the bed. There lay floral sheets, closed eyes, and my mother’s frail fingers still warm in my hand.
“Let go,” she had said.
“No,” I had told her.
When the fingers grew cold I heard her voice again. That’s when I let go.
Gwendolyn Jacob is rediscovering her fictional roots and has several works in progress.
The word rolls from my tongue: lacuna.
It has the romantic sound of a cello playing, a silky feeling like soft, luscious melon in my mouth, hiding the true meaning.
It is an empty place beside me: the gap in my world, where I am stranded since you are gone.
Candace Kubinec wrote this story.
The raindrops on the window look like tears.
Ava says, “Daddy, the house is crying.”
“It’s not, dear,” I promise, gathering the last of our bags from the room where her mother fought so hard.
But as the removal van pulls away, I look back and wonder if she’s right.
Mark Farley (mumbletoes.blogspot.com) is attempting to write 1,000,000 words in 2016. Please wish him luck!
Armed with flowers, she visits his grave. Six months gone. She lays the bouquet down, purple petals smeary as lipstick.
Dahlias, she says. They’re my favorite.
He’d always bought her daisies for wedding anniversaries, Mother’s Days. The old frustration sears her. Better to forget she’d told him a million times.
Adina Davis lives in Massachusetts. Her stories have appeared most recently at streetwrite.com and Intrinsick.
School continues, but your lessons are done. Your empty desk and chair are a reminder you’re no longer here.
Why did you play with that abandoned gun in the alley? Senseless tragedy put your ten-year timeline to an end.
A lesson learned too hard, one our class will never forget.
Shawnta S. Barnes is a literacy coach in Indianapolis Public Schools, an adjunct instructor at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis School of Education, and a 2016-2017 Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellow.