They say real girls wear pearls and polka dot skirts. They speak in whispers and seldom make noise. They walk softly, on tippy toes Softly, too, in just the right heels appropriately lady-like and not

I know it's been a few months since I posted the last of these, but such is the life of a writer, one as disorganized and at times, lazy as this one. But be that as it may, here is the next chapter of

#Unafraid It is only melting away And into Deep, deep, deep Your wings Folded into mine, A perfect fit We will fly High but slow As if in deep sleep We will drip Into each other's pores Drop by drop We

(me skiing in the tundra at about 40 below) Unraveling My grandmother died of a broken arm. Not technically, but that’s how I remember it. She’d been in a bad motorcycle accident; suffered a severe concussion

The Making of a Reb, Part 3 “When was your last test, Carter?” He stills, stares at me, uncomprehending. “Your balance test, Carter, the last one, when?” My voice is loud now, demanding. Carter doesn’t

First - a caveat. While I use ‘Borsht’ in the title, no self-respecting Russian would either spell or pronounce it this way. It really should be “Borsh” and so that’s what I’m going to call it. A few things

image credit Pixabay A Gift “I have a gift for you.” She turns, looks at him, the face she knows so well. He’s smiling at her one of his secret, soft smiles, not the stilted kind he usually has on. She

The ancient sage was wrong. Hell is not other people. It’s the absence of the right ones. Or the one. She sat on the edge of a colossal tortoise-shaped rock, staring at the reflections of vivid pinks and

#Un-Shattered# But what is a family but bundles of hurt silent or begging or stirring up dirt that you'd long since buried to save your heart only they own it and there isn't a safeguard of that old old

NOTE: This story was written for the Scribes and Scribblers Writing Competition. You can find them on Discord. Awesome group of people. The prompt for this was Not Quite Human with an idea of writing from

So I promised a few friends on the Isle of Write discord that one of these days, I’ll tell them about my fishing trip this past Sunday. A promise is a promise, so here goes. My Fishing Misadventures We

Unfinished I am insomniac again. My mind a whirlywhirl of words, spun up and spinning through the web I weave, from textures of the roads I’ve trod, among the silks of fragile papers of old books, smelling

Erased if I were on paper, would you erase me? slowly, line by fading line? Or would you light the fire in the old chimney and set a match? or would you rather do nothing at all, as if you and I were a

The Making of a REB I blink when Carter flicks the lights on. He’s sweating. Still in pain I imagine, but he’s smiling at me too. “Thank you,” he says simply; throws his shirt back on. I scan the stark

A Belated Garden She liked it when I brushed my hand gently down her back, my hands soft at first, then more and more calloused with the years of tending to the little house and the garden; years of pounding

The Making of a REB Part 1 I have been rebalanced twenty seven times since my seventh birthday. I remember every one. And yet, it did not work. I keep my head low and pick up the pace as I turn the corner

The Meeting is Adjourned “Order,” Dr. Calloway barked, the way he only did when he was agitated. “This Board will come to order,” he repeated, quietly now, and leaned back into the oversized soft leather,

The First Shave The first time he shaved, he’d cut himself. Not badly enough to where it bled much, but enough to where he noticed the sharp sting of it. Dad soaked a cotton ball in peroxide and pressed

It was hard to ignore the noise of so many wheels crushing the blacktop. The lights streaming through the darkened windows, screaming reds and purples and blues, an epileptic’s worst nightmare. We huddled

-The Last Wave- It’s the ninth wave you have to watch out for. Poseidon’s wrath roils slowly, reluctantly, they say. And you think, as a child, that you have enough time to surf the white caps.... Until