life

Thursdays, pt 2

Submitted by E on Mon, 12/15/2014 - 19:29

“Just let me eat my lunch in peace,” Jake murmured to the girl sitting on his left. Amélie smiled mildly and took a long drag from her cigarette, then threw her head back and blew the smoke up into the air—her signature move. “I’m a dragon,” she always used to say, and then she would laugh at her own joke. She didn’t speak this time—Jake didn’t think she could.

Seperation

Submitted by E on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 22:50

I'm feeling those 8,481 miles more than before.
I didn't fully recognize how much I'd miss you
until you had already gotten up and left.
I find myself relaying stories about
all the funny things you've done
I miss your undeniable eccentricity,
nobody can claim that they have a friend like you.
4:40pm Texas time, 3:40am on the "treeless dune of sand".
I wonder if you're sleeping or if you're sitting up, awake,
thinking about coming home or about how your birthday
is tomorrow and you have to spend it in a country that you hate.

Roots

Submitted by E on Tue, 12/02/2014 - 04:57

I. Roots
We’re making plans like I will see him again.
He’s acting like I will.
But where he’s going isn’t good. It isn’t good.
An airplane flies overhead and that’s where he’ll be in eleven days,
in the sky, flying through our uncondensed stratosphere,
thirty thousand feet above the ground, which is where I am planted
like a seed
spreading my roots and growing up,
learning to accept that my friends don’t have to stay planted with me.

It's Here!

Submitted by Mary on Tue, 11/25/2014 - 02:58

Just like that. After seven-and-a-half years, eight drafts, countless revisions, and a title change, my first novel is now published and available.
Finally--finally!--after all these years, it's 100\% complete and out there on the market for real.

True Manhood

Submitted by Damaris Ann on Sun, 11/23/2014 - 15:10

As an only child, most people said that I was spoiled, and although I didn't agree with them I guess that they were right. It hurt when people said "no" to me, hurt more than it should have. I became bitter. "Why did my parents spoil me?" I would ask myself. In spoiling me they had made my life harder because I didn't know how to face reality. Now looking back, I realize that I had spoiled myself. I called myself a man because I was tall, over eighteen years old, and my voice had changed to where I could sing bass without "cracking". But what does being a "man" mean?

Consumed

Submitted by E on Sat, 11/15/2014 - 03:52

You are completely consuming my mind.
I want you out now, I want you gone.
I hate it when I feel the impending dread in my chest,
Sinking & plowing down through my organs.
Your exit is nearer than I am prepared for,
I need to see you but I can’t seem clingy—
But I am, I’m clinging, I‘m clinging for dear life,
On the edge, it’s so precarious, and you are so close.
Why did you have to make these changes so abruptly?
I’ve just gotten to the point where I think, “Yes, maybe.”

Platonic/Don't Leave Me

Submitted by E on Mon, 11/10/2014 - 00:59

I. Just a Girl
Get back over here
Don’t talk to her, talk to me
I don’t like the haughty way
She held her head when she
Told you to come closer
I don’t like her
Heavy red lipstick
I don’t like the way
She reached out and
Hugged your shoulders
I don’t like
Her
Flirting with you.

There's Perfect, there's Normal, and then there's Me

Submitted by Damaris Ann on Sun, 11/09/2014 - 05:35

There's perfect, there's normal, and then there's me.
Listen closely and I'll tell you what I mean:
Perfect wears a dress sized two,
Her little foot wears a seven shoe.
Perfect nose and perfect smile,
Eyes made to win and beguile.
Perfect body and perfect face,
Perfect hair, always in place.
Now normal tells a rather sad tale,
In perfectness does surely fail.
Messy bun and camo flip-flops,
Red plaid pajama bottoms and a pink tank-top.
Neon-green nails, painted weeks ago,
Too much makeup, putting on a show.