Writing Prompt

The last time I cried, I had fallen on concrete and scraped my leg. The tears pricked my eyes and embarrassment knawed on my heart. My grandfather made his way over to me and lifted my chin. I expected comfort and tenderness. I wanted comfort and stability. But I got disappointment and rage. My grandfather lifted my chin, looked me in the eye and told me as a young boy and asked me if I want to be...

Basten sat in the kitchen, just outside the bedroom, and listened to the sounds emanating from within. There was a bustle of people moving about and low voices murmuring things which he could not decipher. Every few minutes, he heard the voice of Jessa moaning or crying out briefly as she was experiencing labor pains. The one place Basten most desired to be, he was not permitted.

A knock at the...

[Incomplete, inspired by/Retelling of biblical story of Joseph]

The rope around my neck won’t kill me, but the nasty scar it’ll leave could ruin me.

With what little slack I have, I lift my bound hands to ease it away for some relief.

I need to focus on surviving. The future isn’t set in stone yet.

The coarse threads bite my palms as I gently tug the rope. Red blisters had formed, popped, and...

Suddenly, all the pent-up emotions he had held within came rushing down on Zeeke as he lay on his-couch at the exact same spot-for the eleventh time this week, tears crawled down from his face one by one. He was in deep, utter pain, like a man who had been shot and can't seem to go to sleep. he was worse than a junkie without their drugs. He was in an endless state of torment because he couldn't h...

The nurse hands her to me, wrapped in a snug pink bundle. Her face is scrunched up and wrinkled. All angry like a little old granny.

Melody watches, tired eyes content. Dark bags hang low below her shining blue eyes. She’s more beautiful now then ever before.

My eyes sting, as I stare at her face. This impossible life I hold in my hands, brand new. Half me, half Melody. A person, so fresh and unl...

I watched the two of them as they walked away, hands tucked around each other. Her hair flowed lightly in the winter wind; his coat was black and drawn tightly against his skin. The presents they just bought were wrapped in a small, white bag. I wondered who would receive them, knowing it wasn’t me.

Of course it wasn’t me; why would it be? They didn’t know me, and I didn’t know them. But I yearn...

I’ve never been the emotional type.

Well, not in my adult life, anyways. I was taught to never show my emotions in front of others who would exploit them. A very cold a cruel lesson taught by my parents at a very young age whenever I would let a traitorous tear slip past my careful barriers.

It’s been 15 years since I’ve last cried, but that changed today.

It’s a da...

Why do you only focus on the vast, rolling plains stretching miles into the horizon? How can you waste your time crouching in the grass, only to inhale the gentle scent of dewy campions? Absorbed by nature’s callous beauty, you miss the scarlet beads scattered across their snowy petals.

_Do you smell the smoke?_

If you lift your gaze, now, you would observe the patch of grass blackened by ash ah...

Jared had been drifting for years clock in, clock out, microwave dinners, grey skies, silence. Nothing ever touched him. Not even the funeral.

But tonight, under the flickering light of a parking garage, his hands trembled warm, sticky red dripping between his fingers. The man at his feet had begged. Jared hadn't listened.

And now… everything was quiet. Not the dead, suffocating kind he was used t...

Like sand through a seive, her hands brush through my hair. The movement is swift, easy, with no knots tugging at my scalp. For my first morning after, I never expected such warmth, nor did I expect her hands to be so cold. But it was easy to pay no mind.

“I’m not hurting you, am I, Lilly?” Ophelia asks gently. Sleep still weighs against her, but the reparative task of brushing out the many knot...