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Amy
{#907 You are the main attraction at an old timey carnival side show} I was born a siren eighty miles off the coast of the Emerald Isle. The waters were cold, but my beauty was a flame that kept me warm. I swam wherever I wanted, only mindful of the big wooden ships steaming out for America every day. I batted my tail up sometimes, quick as a hiccup, making the sailors wonder if they saw anything at all. Maybe it was just the glimmer of the sun on the water. Maybe they missed their girl already. I dreamed of having sparkling jewelry made of diamonds and sapphires, not these devoid of color pearls. I wanted legs to dance on. I wanted a life on land. There was one way to obtain it. I could trade my fin forever by luring a man to his death. Girls did it all the time, we were known to be mesmerizing. And we would possess the same beauty on land as we did in the sea, just without our giant, beautiful tail to propel us along. We would be known as vixens. It would be easy enough: wait for a foggy night with a still sea, begin my enchantment by singing my siren song, beckon them closer, closer, until his eyes go gooey with lust, and then catapult out of the water like I was going in for just a kiss but really going for his heart. Or his legs, be that as…
{#378 They say revenge is a dish best served cold. You’ve waited ten years for this moment} The following is a work of fiction. I’ve always said fiction has a good dose of fact, mixed with some fantasy. I’ll let you determine what’s what. Enjoy! I come from a long line of rage. My lawyers tried to get me off on a insanity plea, but I told them like I told everybody else in that courtroom I wasn’t crazy and I damn sure wasn’t sorry. I don’t think that helped my case. But I’ve been taught my whole life there’s nothing wrong with the truth. I’ve also been told on numerous occasions to keep my mouth shut. I’d had all I could take. The literal love of my life expected sympathy for his foolish decisions to take a lover that has bankrupted him. That’s after what I got. I didn’t feel any sympathy, I felt a maniacal fury towards him and the last ten years of my life. I’d warned him over and over again to just shut up. My head pounded, my teeth chattered, my hands clenched. When he reached for me, I scuttled backward like a crawdad. Crawdads aren’t scared, you know. It’s just self preservation. They will fight. They will pinch you seventeen ways to…
Have you ever thought about what it would be like if, when you heard a song for the first time, you could see into the future? If you knew, in the blink of an eye what you would be doing and where you’d be the rest of your life when you heard it again? Wouldn’t that be the weirdest thing ever? “Semi Charmed Life” comes to mind. It always takes me straight back to the first week of June, 1997. We were at the beach, in a convertible, riding down the strip on the way to dinner. The air was warm with promises of what was to come, not only in the immediate future but for the rest of our just-being-shaped lives. Yesterday, I went to the movies to watch Dirty Dancing on the big screen. Prior to the showing, the projector ran a series of facts about the film. Jennifer Grey was 27 when she was cast to play the 17 year old Baby! She had the part immediately after the audition. Patrick Swayze didn’t have dancing listed on his resume, and was nearly looked over. Val Kilmer was offered the part of Johnny Castle, but didn’t want to be branded as a “hunk”. I do not understand this reasoning, I am merely stating the facts. The lights dimmed. “That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me Baby…
This is an old story, one I have held off on publishing. I had originally called it “But”, however when I came to this writing prompt, it was a perfect fit. He never laid a hand on me. It’s been ten years, but the memory of him still breaks me out in a sweat. When he meets people and finds out they know me, I’m brushed off with a, “Oh, we went out a few times.” I lived with him for two years. We traveled the continent together. We talked nearly every day for over six years. I loved him, because he made me. Because I didn’t know any better. I thought the constant struggle for air was a form of love. This story is nearly impossible to write. I’ve had him out of my head for quite awhile, until a month or so ago, when in walked the director for the Women’s Center in Jefferson County. I try to make conversation while plugging in information on the QuickBooks invoice because it makes people feel more comfortable and it makes time go faster. There ain’t nothin’ quick about QuickBooks. She was so confident in her mannerisms, just the way she carried herself and the way she spoke. She was approachable but businesslike and I found myself confiding in her. “So what does your organization do? Provide shelter to women coming from domestic…
I sat on a salt worn, splinter ridden, slate grey deck outside a restaurant in Newport Bay, Oregon. I ate a Cobb salad and couldn’t resist sharing with the sea lions scattered on the rocky beach below me. Tomato and bit of egg for me, lettuce for you. Cucumber drenched in ranch dressing for me….more lettuce for you. Between their barking and the squall of seagulls, the waves breaking onshore were nearly drowned out. Perfect background noise for this dismal June day. Dismal only because it was June and June is supposed to be bright and just becoming uncomfortably hot. Not rainy and 50 degrees. But the Pacific Northwest isn’t known for enchanting weather. Majestic trees and rocky shorelines, yes. And, of course, The Goonies. I was supposed to be setting foot in Ireland right about now, but instead I was watching seals on a buoy a few hundred yards out. It wasn’t so bad. The temperature was probably about the same. Less bars and yuppier people, but that was okay too. I wasn’t in much of a mood for socializing. I wondered about the seals on the buoy. Did they swim out there, away from their counterparts for a bit of a break? Did they aim to stake out a claim on their own private real estate only to be accosted by “friends” who wanted company? I’m glad I was alone on my deck in…
My Grandmother had died. We were planning her non-funeral and trying to determine what to put on a headstone. She wasn’t a religious woman. Nothing seemed right, all these pat phrases about healing and peace and joy. She was probably a little mad about dying, to tell you the truth. She wasn’t done watching her stories, or watching her grandson grow up. She was pretty much done with me, though, I’ll tell you that. My grandmother was a PISTOL, right up to the end. I went to great lengths not to cross her. She had everything wrote out, which my mother decided to blatantly disobey. She didn’t want her name in the paper under obituaries “because it ain’t nobody’s damn business when I die”, she didn’t want a funeral “because I don’t want anybody lookin’ at me while I’m layin’ there, dead” and she didn’t want a preacher “cause they’re all a bunch of liars.” Well. She swore she’d haunt us, but I didn’t think she would because she didn’t want to die in the house on account of me being afraid to live there. More on that in a minute. But mom wasn’t scared of her, and neither was Uncle Dale, so they conspired to give a memorial service. Nobody…
I never know with these word prompts whether I’m gonna tell you the truth or spin some yarn. Sometimes I want to do both. And I bet sometimes I could trick you on which one was true, if it wasn’t too far fetched. Of course, sometimes my life is so weird you might guess wrong! Let’s picture it: pure white, uniform crystals that faintly glitter, mounded up like a snow capped peak outside Denver. Dense and easily confused with sugar, but smaller granules in common households. Representative of superstitions and a commodity throughout all the years of human existence. Found in every home, forever and always. Frequently given as a traditional housewarming gift known as a pounding: pound of sugar, pound of flour, pound of butter, pound of cornmeal, and a pound of salt. May their lives always have flavor. My grandmother loved salt. She added it liberally to watermelon, beans, creamed potatoes, anything just about. After she passed, I couldn’t ever get my mashed potatoes to come out like hers and Uncle Dale laughed and said, “Pilgrim, you ain’t dumpin’ enough salt to ’em!” That was a fact. She must’ve used half a salt shaker at a time for a pot of them. My cousin must have watched her cooking pretty close, because she decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies when she was around ten or so. According to her…
I try to make my blog posts about me. Not only because I’m vain and self-centered (what? Y’all thought I didn’t know??) but because every English teacher I’ve ever had stressed that you have to write about what you know. And I know me. I was striving to name things I felt like I had conquered and it all seemed like such a sham. People tell me I’m competitive, but I don’t see it. I just want everybody to work as hard as me so we can get the desired result quicker. If one man isn’t rowing, it puts a strain on the rest of the crew to pull his weight. I can’t stand people who take up space and don’t contribute. I realized I haven’t conquered much when I set down to it. There’s so much unfinished business out there. But let me tell you, I just finished a book by someone who has. Jewel Kilcher. She frankly amazes me. She fended pretty much for herself growing up in Alaska. She moved to Hawaii for a semester, staying with her aunt, just to try something different. When that didn’t work out, she got the money up and came home. She was yodeling in bars with her daddy when she wasn’t any bigger than a minute. She hitchhiked all over Alaska as a…
{WP #815 the poem that won awards and sparked so many to love poetry again} I sat down to write it, summoning Jesus (’cause everybody’s momma loves Jesus), Shel Silverstein (’cause grownups and kids alike love him), and David Allan Coe (’cause he wrote the ultimate country and western song). I had to be humble, and funny, and true. I had to please the masses. My success depended on it. No pressure, right? It had to have music and roses and candlelightTo make everything just rightIt had to be whimsicalAnd moody And upliftingBut also rhyme and not be uptightIt had to say a million “I love you”sIt had to sing with all the joy everlastingIt had to be the one thing you could memorizeAnd let the world know you were sophisticatedIt had to make you forget about your problemsAnd make you feel lightAnd gracefulAnd place stars in your eyesIt had to talk about all the ugly things turned beautifulBecause this is the perfect poemThe one where there is the gorgeous treeAnd the luscious fruitAnd the breathtaking oceanAnd all the things we dream about at our desks at 1:30 in the afternoon  …
{WP #942 The City Behind the Waterfall} My backpack weighed only eight pounds, but it may as well have been eighty. The mosquitoes were literally eating me alive, and I wondered how effective my malaria shots were if the swarm sucked all my blood and I had to have a transfusion from a native who had NOT had the recommended rounds of anti-malarial antibodies? Something else to worry about. Writing for National Geographic had been a dream of mine since I was old enough to look at the pictures, and I knew I was beyond fortunate to have this experience, but the tribesman scout that I had been assigned to was a brutal hiker and I was dog tired. I missed my dog, speaking of dogs. I missed chili dogs from street vendors in Chicago. I missed going to the movies to see a chick flick. I missed my beautiful canary yellow Volkswagon Beetle. I missed getting all the electricity I needed from a wall socket. I missed makeup and uncomfortably high heels, and most especially, I missed my books. I collapsed on a rock covered with vines. I didn’t have the energy to look for snakes. All I’d seen were lizards lately, anyway. They liked lounging on my tent. My Bushman stopped his whacking and faced me with the universal quizzical “How can she be tired already? Wimpy girl” look. I feel sure that if he knew how to roll his eyes…
