Favorite First - 100 words

As time came to close on our impromptu rendezvous I grew anxious, waiting, anticipating. Thirteen minutes then fourteen, time to part ways; a hug you wanted so I obliged, leaning into your embrace.

Then, your eyes met my gaze, and shortly there after the warmth of your lips pulsed through mine.

Warp speed freeze frames of synchronized motion, steam rising off our bodies pressed against the cold steel.

A few seconds forever engrained, your lip in mine as we slowly parted ways. An abrupt end to our fifteen minutes of fame, my heart beating thrice with every step you take. 

14. Block

It’s a process, you know?

The pen scratches against the beloved yellow legal pad; two sentences in, hastily ripping the marred sheet away to reveal the next. Then, crumpling aforementioned sheet into non-aerodynamic ball to be sent flying across the room towards trash bin half-full of identical counterparts.

Start over with brilliant first line inspired by real emotion and promptly get lost in said emotion for so long that words no longer come and the thought of attempting to articulate is mildly overwhelming.

Repeat process. New topic, and here is where I’m found. Writer’s block, an explanation for the hiatus. 

12. Managing Miles

It’s a tragedy, these fissures and voids that lie between.

I hate that it isn’t simple, that my arms can’t reach, can’t cover the gap, can’t wrap around in times of need.

We’re left to maneuver the open lines of communication.

But alas, letters and phone calls don’t satisfy my imagination.

I’d rather it be that we are settled comfortably in sections of our fictional fort built with blankets and chairs.

In my favorite version of managing the miles, the giggles and secrets and everything else vibrate across the expanse of string attached to the empty can against my ear. 

11. A Novel Idea

The little bell that jingles when I walk through the door always makes me feel invited, and even though I don’t like cats I tolerate Emerson’s affectionate nuzzle against my leg.

“Maybe I’ll revisit Emerson today, Ralph Waldo that is, or maybe Thoreau, or Steinbeck, or some other classic literature giant,” I thought as I ran my fingers over the stacks of cracked spines.

No matter how often I read them, I will not tire of the eloquence in East of Eden, Walden Pond, Self-Reliance.

You see, they make me feel more my age; these persuasive men, these yellowed pages. 

10. In A Cappella

There are few things that make me more insecure than hearing the noise of my own voice unaccompanied by a melodious symphony of sounds.

So, when the band ceased the playing of their instruments on Sunday and continued with an A cappella chorus, I paused momentarily, unsure with my voice no longer camouflaged by the thick reverberation from the speakers.

That was, until I heard the most beautiful cacophony of sounds. Voices high and low, on key and off; my brothers and sisters singing in perfect union; so, I unabashedly joined in…

.. Nothing compares to this love, love, love…

9. Textured Language

Try as I might to decipher the languages placed before me on a daily basis, I’m constantly getting lost in the heady, dense jargon of my fellow scientists and thick, sugar-coated mess of the overtly Christian conversations in which I often partake. I attempt but even falter in the disciplines of icy slander and abrasive sarcasm. 

However, I never lose my way in the simple fluidity of a warm embrace; there isn't confusion in unblemished, selfless service. As imperfect as it may or may not be, my heart always beats in sync with the soft spoken sentiment, I love you. 

‎"Language, imperfect as it may be, is the realizer of our world. It is the texture of our thoughts."

7. Personal Tragedy

If I saw it in a movie, I’d look away, or cover my eyes.  I certainly wouldn’t fixate on the details, taking in the sights and sounds and smells.

I wouldn’t know the trajectory of her thoughts, or notice the desperation grow as the minutes accumulate more and more rapidly.

No, I wouldn’t relate to this story. I’d be as naïve as the religious folk we all love to hate. I’d be safe and sound and whole within.

But in this nightmare of a dream I get no such luxury. I’m a front row spectator to my own personal tragedy. 

6. Crash

It sounded like a cracking whip amplified by one hundred. Ten fingers and ten toes, no broken bones; Shattered glass strewn about the car and all over my lap.

I ached all over but not enough to want attention, not enough to want your pity. Gotta be strong; be calm, cool, collected.

I made the statement to the police officer and tried not to be angry, tried not to blame her for being careless, young and scared.

A stiff neck brace and seventeen x-rays later I still tried to be tough, but today, I’m not and I refuse to pretend. 

5. Your Hand in Mine

I don’t know that I’ve ever sensed the subduing effect I felt as you ever so intentionally slipped your fingers in between each of mine, piecing me back together.

It wasn’t like the first time as we surveyed the sunset and watched the tide ebb and flow, your fingers accidentally brushing mine, then more and more daringly, no longer unintended. I was so painfully aware of each gentle graze that I swore I could feel each grain of sand fall between the cracks of my fingers back to the earth where they belonged; where we belong, your hand in mine. 

#3 - 100 words (Restless)

I sat for what seemed like hours, swinging gently in the bright orange hammock on the front porch.  So many thoughts swam through my mind and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t focus on a single one.  I attempted, as I normally do to pick apart the source of all the noise, to no avail.

Oh well, I sighed, and let myself sink into the hammock as it started swinging a little faster than before and the crickets sang me a sweet melody. I’ll let my body rest but my heart, for all intensive purposes, we’ll call it restless. 

#2 - 100 words (Reasons)

He heard there are several reasons that people begin using drugs, loads of extraneous circumstances that cause people to spiral into the depths of substance abuse.

People make it apparent that there are far too many reasons for him to choose from; her and them and all the pressures to perform closing in on him, threatening to throw off his delicate balance.

Just as the reality of his motives begin to sink in so does the plunger of the syringe in his arm, sending him swiftly into his own personal oblivion.

And, he thinks, at this point who needs reasons. 

#1 - 100 words

Nicole has never been one for small talk, which suits her quite nicely as she sits in a small corner booth of the local coffee shop.

At first glance she appears to be working on her MacBook, occasionally sipping the brew of the day, sans cream or sugar.

However, if you looked a little closer you would notice tired eyes behind the bangs she sweeps carelessly to the side as she works to meet her deadlines.

You don’t have to be a genius to see what she’s feeling, the designs and doodles she conjures up tell her story well enough.

Initially inspired by http://www.1hundred-words.com/

Lyrics

Prompt 13

I’m a sucker for one-liners. I like to hear people zing witty banter back and forth and I love hearing short, profound sentiments. I think that’s why I love music so much. Every day I listen to music, all day. I’d like to think I have a healthy appreciation for most genres, and consider myself a music aficionado. However, the reality is I just latch onto musicians that other people like and based on their lyrics and sound, love them or leave them.  That has been the case for my most recent musical obsessions. For example I found my love for Mumford and Sons and The Civil Wars based on (cower in shame) episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, and my love for Sara Bareilles based on this blog post.

I find so much satisfaction in listening to these artists sing sweet melodies and spill out poetic verses, hooks and bridges that seem to explain where I’m at so perfectly. It’s as if they stepped right into my mind and plucked out how I feel about Jesus, my relationships, and the direction of my life. Often the actual subject matter of the song has nothing to do with what I’m experiencing but somehow these artists use a few lines to sum up the pages and pages of my Moleskine that I’ve filled trying to decipher what I feel.

Won't somebody come on in and tug at my seams?/ Oh, send your armies in of robbers and thieves/ To steal the state I'm in I don't want it anymore

I know that she is singing about a man and pleading to get over him. She calls herself a basket case and gives examples of why she loves him. That couldn’t be farther from MY situation except for maybe the basket case part. I have a loving and faithful husband, but those lines are closer to home than I’d like to admit. I NEED to be moved out of the state I’m in; I’m pleading in a similar way to be pushed, pulled or dragged into a better state of mind. Truth is for months I’ve been struggling to mutter a prayer for myself other than, Please, Father be patient with me.

I’m balancing between a desire to dive deeper and thinly veiled apathy. I want to be robbed of fear and insecurity. I want shameful and painful memories to be stolen.

I hold on to worry so tight/ It's safe in here right next to my heart/ Who now shouts at the top of her voice/ Let me go, let me out, this is not my choice

I’d rather stop worrying and move forward in freedom. I want what I should believe to be what I really believe instead of cluttered with questions and doubt. I realize it’s all a bit dramatic but I’m okay with that. For now, I’ll sing along to popular songs and plead their melodic prayers until I feel closer to where I need to be. I'll rely on poetic verses and concise lyrics to say it better than I can because something is better than nothing. 

Daydream Dancing

This piece began from this prompt, but I don't know that I actually accomplished the objective.


I shouldn’t have listened to that song when it came on the radio. Normally I would turn the station but today I allowed myself to linger.  I was surprised at how quickly I slipped into the routine, the one we perfected on Sunday nights between sweaty bodies on the smoky dance floor. It was as if I could feel your right hand lock into mine and your left one slide around the small of my back. We’d made friends with the band and they would always play our song. When we got good, everyone would clear a circle in the center and watch our choreographed intimacy. They'd clap and whistle when we got to the extra spins and steps we’d added for flair.

I didn’t feel guilty until it got close to the finale; the part where you moved in close and locked your hips to mine, your hands slipping down the front of my thighs as we swayed back and forth to the rise and fall of the melody. Then as the last few bars of the song expired you would dip me low towards the floor and each time we would pause longer than the last, all caught up in each other, the heaviness of the moment. It was always slow motion for me, the rise and fall of my chest as I tried to find my breath and beads of sweat rolling down my collar bone towards the nape of my neck.  You’d pull me up laughing and we would retire to our corner booth, all our energy spent.

It didn’t get much better than that for us. We couldn’t seem to communicate anywhere but the dance floor and our love didn’t last. Maybe it wasn’t even love, but I’m not sure. I shrugged off all my uncertainties as I made my way back to reality. I tried not to feel guilty as I tucked away all the little memories that found their way into my daydream. After all, it was just a dance, just 4 minutes of cha-cha-ing through our yesterdays. 

The Chronicles of ....

Prompt

I am convinced that the greatest relationships in life are the unexpected ones, the ones that metaphorically sweep you off your feet. In fact, the majority of the intimate relationships of my current state were quite unexpected. Take for example one of my closest friends. She and I met under the most random circumstances. It was a high school soccer game for one of our mutual friends. I came to watch on a whim (kind of). In hindsight it wasn’t nearly as whimsy as I thought. After all, I did drive four hours to watch a two hour soccer match. It was a big game and I had wanted to surprise my friend playing and another friend spectating. As I tip-toed through the bleachers I noticed a semi-familiar face, one I’d seen in pictures and heard countless stories about. As I got closer and prepared to surprise her companion, she glanced back…. Busted. Or at least I thought so until I put my finger on my lips and mouthed shhhhh. My new found co-conspirator played it perfect. She pursed her lips, crossed her arms and nodded confidently. Surprise success! I’ve never been a believer in “love at first sight” but that encounter comes pretty close. All it took after that to blossom our friendship was a common denominator and a two hour Anchorman quoting session.

I cannot count how many inside jokes we have compiled or how many times we’ve laughed until we almost puked. We even joke about the sustainability of our friendship and how it’s a good thing we live 6 hours apart. After all, the world might implode upon itself if we spent more than a few days in the same place. (Sometimes I don’t doubt the validity of that statement) Truth be told, aside from our extensive fits of laughter, our interactions can be quite volatile at times. For example we aren’t allowed to have serious conversations via Skype anymore. Believe it or not, sarcasm can be seriously misread over typed characters. There have been several times we’ve seriously hurt each other’s feelings, usually unintentionally, but hurt nevertheless. It’s bound to happen in close relationship. When you get real with someone, sometimes you say things you don’t mean, or things you do mean that just come out poorly. Sometimes you can’t help but step on each other’s toes.

One of the things I hate, and love most about her is her desire to step on my toes. She rarely tells me what I want to hear, which pisses me off to no end. I almost always take it personally, until I realize that she’s right, which pisses me off to no end. It’s a collision of the best kind, a beautiful impact if you will. She rubs the wrong way on purpose and pushes me into the uncomfortable. She’s forever altered the way I view friendship. She helps show me what it’s like to bear the banner of Christ in relationships. It’s beautiful and awfully messy; forceful and gentle.

We’ve made plans. Plans hashed out over the phone, 6 hours apart, each with Woodchuck in hand. Plans to run a coffee shop in a college town, with lots of books, and good tea, and ridiculousness. That plan might never happen but I’ve no doubt we’ll be making mischief for many years to come. It won’t be because we know how to sustain our friendship. It will be because the sustainability doesn’t rely upon our ability to make each other happy or walk on eggshells. If that were the case we’d have jumped ship long ago. She’s taught me that it has nothing to do with us, which makes it even sweeter. 

9 Across

Prompted Again

I’ve never been a huge fan of reading the newspaper. It’s full of depressing material, deaths, murders, abuse and articles about benefits for sick and dying children. I can’t help but put it down and walk away with my stomach twisted in knots and my mind troubled with helplessness. I want to fix all the problems I read about, and I didn’t even make it past the Local section. Even though I know this familiar feeling I can’t help but pick one up and read it nearly every day, maybe I’m a glutton for punishment? Yesterday was no different. I picked up a couple sections of the LA Times as the lunch table conversation turned to daycare horror stories and general “kid talk.”

As I browsed over the headlines I couldn’t stop the sick feeling as it began to churn in my insides. It was loud and clear on every page, “You’re not good enough!” (And neither is anyone else) I retreated to find some solace in the crossword. I only got 3 clues in before the knot in my stomach twisted a little tighter. 9 Across: Drug Addict – 4 letters. Easy, USER. I didn’t even think twice about the answer. I’m all too familiar with this terminology. It’s what everyone called my brother for about 3 years. They referred to his habits as “using” and I suppose they were in the simplest version of the word. He was using whole bottles of Jack Daniels and homemade tourniquets; dirty needles and street side remedies to cure his afflictions. I was naïve to the severity of his habits. In fact I thought it was cool that he got me into dirty pubs and ordered me Red Bull and vodka so I could stay awake while he partied late into the night. I lived in my underage fantasy world until the night he called me at 3 a.m. tripping off an unknown combination of whiskey and amphetamines. He was enraged and depressed, fighting sobs between lines of expletives; flirting with the barrel of his shotgun. I tried to stay calm and told him stories of our childhood. I talked and talked until he fell asleep. I listened and wept for another hour making sure I could hear the deep breathing on the other end of the phone. That night raw and youthful went out the window and until he got clean I was scared ____less every time I saw mom’s number on my caller ID.

All things considered, it didn’t stop me from becoming a user, but not the hard drug variety. I was the copious volumes of alcohol and random sexual encounters type. I went to an AA meeting with my brother as his “support.” He got his 12 steps and I secretly got a hefty dose of guilt. We stopped using, my brother and I, at least in regards to those addictions. However, it hasn’t stopped us from becoming addicted to other things just like everybody else in the newspaper. We’re all users, addicted to working out, dieting, conflict, violence, fear, recognition, image, ambiance, attention, fantasy, knowledge, entitlement, money, sex, power, justice, guilt etc. It’s obvious in our headlines, each one reeking of addiction, good and bad. Maybe that’s why I can’t stop reading the newspaper, I’m addicted to that guilty feeling; maybe everyone else’s addictions make me feel better about mine. Regardless of the reason, one thing is obvious, I’m still a user.