Daisies The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating. He knew it as surely as he knew that his father would beat him if he’d gotten anything less than a B on it, as surely as he’d always known

A Quiet Clock They say your life flashes before your eyes; the smells, the sounds, the faces of those you’ve loved and hated–a filmstrip of life spun slowly, in reverse, vivid as your first sunset. But

The Prey He pulled on her elbow, aggressively, as if to make sure she had no choice but to follow. He could hear their footsteps getting closer and closer. He pushed her down some, so not even their heads

Upside Down in a Willow Tree When I was five or six, I wrote a song. I remember walking around the summer camp and wailing my creation loudly enough for everyone to hear. It was years before I learned

----Whisper---- It's but a whisper that looks back To trace its steps, To throw the doors wide open Come what may, but it recoils A Siamese narrows its eyes A shadow or a prey Within its grasp It's all

The Stray It wasn’t about the kitten after all…. The real scrawny one who’d been too dirty even for her, and so she carried him up the five flights of stairs, arms extended awkwardly in front of her, and

Awakening I knew a guy in college who’d rewritten his 600-page novel four times in the hopes that it would be good enough to be published. He wouldn’t let anyone see it. “Unfinished, sloppy, not good enough”

Stone He watches me as I squirm under the cold stare, waiting for me to speak, but his eyes render me mute. The eyes of my first love. Alive and striking and beckoning me in, deeper in my memories of them,

Island of Lesbos “Daddy - what’s a lesbian?” my five year old asks as we stare at small blocks of two-for-one cheese. “Women from the island of Lesbos,” I tell him, straight-faced, reaching for Cheddar.

Home, for what it't worth.... Washing Turtles My brother did this weird thing with turtles, the little ones in any event. He'd pick one up by the little shell and take it home, holding it out away from

My Pen I came to Steemit to take ownership of my pen. You see, I had spent too much of my writing life in places where there was always someone to tell me which color ink to use, which hand to write with,

-The End- How do you tell someone of the end? The child who thought a slug was a butterfly in the making, who looks at you now with those eyes, so strikingly blue, it hurts. Her eyes. You hug him to your

Shattered "If you have any thoughts, please let me know," the woman says and clicks off, not facing her. Selena watches as she slides the phone down toward the middle of the dining room table

David The Duck It wasn’t the softness of the babies, the sort you could almost feel from a distance, that made her beg Mother to please pull over. It was the little one at the very back of the small line.

Their Beach She didn’t mean to say it. The look on his face, the color all drained out of it, as if whitewashed, eyes cast down…. She inhales the sharp smell of oysters and seaweed. Their beach. “I never

GIFTS They were field flowers, blue and white, swimming past you as you stared out the dusty, oily window of the train bearing you northward, their tiny heads bending in unison, waves of fragile things

note: there are rules that are thrown at us in every genre, things not to do, more than anything. How not to open a story, words, phrases - entire sentiments to stay away from, et al. In short, rules for

Thanks at @jrhughes for the reminder tag. And yes, I totally dropped the ball on these, as life happened. But damn it I'm gonna finish this. Rules: 7 black & white images that represent an aspect of

Thank you to @negativer, @tinypaleokitchen and @aksounder for the nominations. Rules: 7 black & white images that represent an aspect of your life. Present one image every day for seven days. No people.

Breakfast - a Love Story I didn’t yet know that he didn’t spell his name with an “h” in that space that always seemed random to me, nor that his version of Jon wasn’t short for anything. I didn’t know