Break The Bottle
#blogging #writing #NicholasSparks #BeTrueToYou
She felt around in darkness
And pulled the ocean to her lips
Her mouth, so dry, let its vastness give her sips
And as the deep glossed water sank into her sand
She was able to reach out. To try and grasp a hand
She pushed through the surface to get a breath of air
Search for some familiar. But she wasn’t anywhere
© Alana Agerbo
Time waits for no one. That’s what they say.
So we work really hard to keep up.
But time. In the meantime. Does what it wants. Has a mind of its own.
Its own drum to beat.
It runs.
It marches.
It walks.
But there’s a little thing you may not know.
If you find the right time. And listen very closely. You don’t need to chase it. Exhaust…
It’s pouring.
I can hear it over the din of the tv and three snoozing pups. Tickling the shingles. Tapping the leaves. Lashing out at whatever comes its way.
And it can feel like it’s beating you. Making everything heavy. Weighted. Pulling you across the pavement. Pouring you into the sewer.
Draining every drop of you.
But there’s another side to rain. A reviving. Replenishing. Quenching. And…
The Band-Aids are blue. Four that I can see. One masking each little knee poking from below her skirt’s hem and one on each elbow, like patches covering holes on an old man’s cardigan. The rest are hidden, but I know they’re there. They’re always there.
Back one night as she lay on her firm cot, she whispered into the lamp’s soft glow; “They can change, you know. When I’m happy, they turn…
I entered a contest a while back. I didn’t win. Or even place this time. Which stings. But it’s okay. It’s okay, because I always pay extra to receive a serving of critique alongside my disappointment. And sometimes. When I’m lucky. It ends up making my disappointment taste like dessert.
Yes, there were words like, uneven and cliche (ouch) but the words that really stood out for me were…wonde…
Slop.
A spoonful of potato hits the plate with a wallop and a little spec of mash lands on the hand holding it. Instead of shuffling on like most, he pauses, making eye contact. I steel myself, waiting for a curse word or a dirty look but all I see is empathy.
It’s the last place I want to be and if I hadn’t already committed, I’d be home, covers over my head.
“Bad day?” he asks, his voice…
I remember hands.
When I think of someone I haven’t seen for a long time. Or someone I will never see again. I see their hands. My mind pictures the shape of their nails. The length of their fingers. Slender. Wide. Rounded or squared. The curve of their wrist. The gestures they made.
Unique. Personal.
But they change. Our hands.
Fingers bend with an arthritic curve. Skin tells of our days…
Autumns, roses, loves, leaves. Leavings and losings. Moons, stars, sorrows, souls. Forevers and goodbyes.
Fine webs spun off the tattered edge of a torn heart.
Broken
Bleeding
Beautiful
Pain. Ache. Loneliness. Things that make it hard to breathe. Things that make it easy to cry.
Things that turn on the light before we reach the switch.
The wishes we shouldn’t make. The things we don’t…
I’m crazy.
I say this with a sigh, so you get a feel for where I’m at. Oh, I may try and pass it off as Hazy, but no. There’s no doubt in my mind I’m certifiably nuts.
And sometimes I forget to tap into that. To use it to my advantage.
Because it works for people like me. People with a creative inkling. So does a little shot of something strong and throat-blazing first thing in the morning,…
Did I mention we have pups?
Ohhh yes. We sure do. Well, they’re pups bordering on adulthood. But when we got them back in October 2016, they were wild and bouncy babes.
And because of them, all kinds of things are happening.
They are mini magicians. These doggies. They’ve magic’d our entire carpet into one big potty. And all of a sudden, our kitchen table seems to be about two inches closer…
I tend to write dark stuff. Most of my stories are either dark fantasy or horror, and many of them don’t end well for at least some of the cast. This once prompted Nimue to comment that all my stories seem sad.
In truth, I try to weave a fair amount of humor into my stuff, and the more I write, the less consistently tragic my stories have become. Still, if you write horror, you’re going to…