You told me I was nothing, going nowhere
You tried to beat it into my head
How cold and hard life really is
But I refused to think of life that way
You’re no longer here to see it, but…
I’m proving you wrong, earning my revenge by living well.
Alexander Key teaches high school but rarely admits it.
She waited. It was all she could do, under the circumstances. She slept and slept, cursing her stupid life and everything that led to this moment.
“An apple a day,” her mother taught. She wished she could roll her eyes.
Instead, she laid waiting for Prince Charming, that tardy boy.
Jarrod Withers graduated a while back with a Masters in English from Eastern Kentucky University. He grew up an only child in rural Kentucky, so his best friend was his imagination. His best friend often got him in trouble.
They cut down every tree around the swamp and left them to rot.
The experts said the downed trees would make good habitat for wild animals, that it was good for the environment.
Next summer the water got too hot. Ducks and geese left. Herons left.
The swamp dried out.
Joanna M. Weston is married and has two cats, multiple spiders, a herd of deer, and two derelict hen-houses. Her middle-reader, “Those Blue Shoes”, has been published by Clarity House Press. Her poetry, “A Summer Father”, was published by Frontenac House of Calgary. Her eBook, “The Willow Tree Girl”, is available through her blog.
The night came, bringing icy cold air to the battlefield, and the moans once heard fell silent as the first snowflakes drifted down.
A shroud of snow covered everything, and in the morning a more beautiful landscape was unimaginable anywhere else, except for the knowledge of the grotesque shapes beneath.
Connell Wayne Regner had successfully avoided writing creatively since he wrote spontaneous lyrics to music some years ago. Although from a linguistic background, he has serendipitously succumbed to fiction. His other dabblings can be found at paragraphplanet and wtdmagazine.wordpress.com.
The sticky sweet pain burns through your insides like hot treacle. It sits heavy in your stomach like too rich chocolate cake, mountains of sugar rushing like adrenaline from the sheer gluttony of pain.
They insist that pain is leaden.
They’re wrong.
Pain is sweet enough to make you sick.
Nikita Gill is the editor of lit journal Modern Day Fairytales. She has also written an ebook called Your Body is an Ocean and has been featured in Monkeybicycle.net.
My ears signal their arrival.
Clenching my eyes, darkness becomes twofold.
Immobile, I dare not move. Their interest sometimes dissipates quicker without a reaction.
I sense them closing in.
The squall of their voices becomes a terrible symphony of unspeakable horrors.
“Get a job. Get up and get a job.”
Craig Holzschuh (1973-present) is an American writer. He is best known for amusing stories and an overreliance on spell-check. His pseudonyms pout in jealousy.
I had been holding the hammer too long not to use it.
The urn shattered as I brought the hammer down, and fragments of porcelain exploded amidst a cloud of ash.
Mommy cried something about grandma when she saw it. Daddy just told her to move grandpa up a shelf.
Chris Griglack was born and raised in Massachusetts where he has lived for 23 years. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2012 with a degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications.
“I love you but you can be a real pain.”
Marmaduke ignored this.
“I feed you. I clean up after you. You demand my affection and you get it.”
Marmaduke looked away.
“I treat your worms. I scratch behind your ears.”
Marmaduke yawned.
“Marmaduke, you’re my husband, not a dog!”
Joe Malone is living in a mud hut in South Sudan. Read more from him at http://joem18b.wordpress.com/.
I wandered out of the house, naked beneath the leather jacket imbued with your musky scent. Wet footsteps followed me down the path to the pond. I settled on our boulder and sipped the coffee you refused to drink.
When the sun rose, I dialed 911 to report your murder.
Suzi Harris is a retired technical writer working on her first novel with the support of her crazy Canadian husband and two psychotic cats.
She hated sneaking around in the dark. She could barely hear the children’s breathing over the pounding in her ears. Each creak of the floorboard caused her heart to skip a beat. Her hand reached toward a sleeping child’s head, slipping beneath the pillow.
She hated playing the Tooth Fairy.
Alisia sometimes likes to write things and posts them on http://eurasianflavour.wordpress.com.