This week's judge is last week's winner, @moonlit__girl.
Here's the prompt:
Remember to check the rules.
Have your 100 - 200 words submitted by 12:00am Friday, April 26, US EDST.
We want anything and everything: poetry, prose, fanfic, OF.
JUST GET WRITING!
Leave your entry as a comment - include your word count, and your twitter handle if you have one.
FYI - entries that exceed (or are under) the word limits will not be considered by the judge.
@shadesofpurple4
ReplyDelete140 word count
I see you. But you don't see me. This rain, is my tears for you, my dear. You and I had so much love. Now, it pains me when you're not around.
I miss you. I miss your touch. Your kisses. Your words of encouragement. The silence we shared together. The laughs we gave each other. Where are you, my love?
These tears I shed because I can no longer hear your words, feel your touch that my body craves so much. I no longer laugh. I have forgotten how to laugh. I just sit at this window always when it's raining. You are gone, my love. I don't know when I'll see you next or if at all.
I try to love but it's not natural. Not like it was when you were here. Hold me as I fall asleep.
@Deebelle1
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 144
Listless and lost, I watched as you walk away through thick gray fog and rain.
I wondered how we got to this point; two separate souls no longer linked with through one beating heart.
Days turned into weeks and weeks flowed into months as the divide continued to grow.
I didn't know you anymore and I hated it.
Where did we go wrong?
When did we become these lost and empty souls?
How can we bring us back to where we were?
Why won’t you let me fix this?
I love you, but it's not enough… I’m not enough for you.
And still further you walk; growing smaller and smaller until I can no longer make out your figure through the thick clouds.
All alone, I press my palm against the cold rain covered window.
I’m lost… Alone.
It's all I'll ever know anymore.
Word count: 164
ReplyDeleteTwitter handle: @AnnaLund2011
~~~~~~~~~
The rain. The rain.
The rain, he said, was going to wash it all away.
In this small café at the end of the world, I finally see clearly. Through rain-stained windows, I watch, and finally see.
The people around me are not my people.
They are all your people; I am so out of sync with who I am. I am lost, and I can’t find me.
The rain was going to cleanse and rinse and cleanse and rinse and cleanse and rinse and—and—
It did not.
All it did was make everything look miserable and wet.
So I watch the rain as it makes its way down the glass window, running down in sweet rivulets, and think to myself that it is the only thing that makes sense today. It comes from above. It runs downward. It ends up in the gutter.
I put my hand up, just to feel something real.
Some days, that’s all you can handle.
Basic gravity.
~~~~~~~~~
Word count: 245
ReplyDeleteTwitter handle: @k8ln713
I look out from the inside of the car.
The rain is pelting against the window and my breath is fogging up the glass.
I was moving again; this time to a place where it rained a majority of the time.
It only increased whatever sadness I felt, as the rain running down the passenger side window was like the tears spilling down my face.
Why couldn't I stay in one place?
Why couldn't I be a normal teenaged girl who had friends or a life?
It is when I cross the town line that I know I have to pull myself together.
I wipe the wetness on my cheeks and take a deep breath. Pull yourself together.
We stop at a traffic light... a long ass traffic light.
It is when I turn to look out my window again to blatantly stare at the rain that I see him.
He's only wearing jeans and a hoodie, normal clothes, but he just looks like he walked right out of a magazine.
My eyes and my head follow his movement as he crosses the street in front of my father's car.
The guy turns his head in my direction and I swear I see a smile grace his face as he sees me.
I smile, too.
Just then, as he reaches the curb, the rain stops. The sun shines.
I feel happy again.
Maybe this won't be too bad of a place to finally become normal.
Word Count: 155
ReplyDeleteTwitter: @AuthorSAMcAuley
If she could have breathed water instead of air, her life may have felt less limited. That she lived on an island—as oversized as it may have been—was a devil’s trap. Surrounded by waves and wind and endless showers that blew up from warmer ocean waters, each migrated mile dropping the temperature until you could feel the frigid chill in your bones. She wanted to throw herself into the waves, draw the ever present rain into her lungs—be a part of it instead of being sodden by it. Why should drowning be peaceful only in death, when it could also be euphoria experienced while fully alive? To stand in the rain, mouth open to the skies, lungs filling with cool wetness. Or to recklessly cannonball off the timeswept cliffs, plunge into the churning waters and inhale the briny chill of the Atlantic. To escape this drenched, claustrophobic island, and finally feel alive.
@sparrownotes24
ReplyDeleteWord count: 200
Lemons lay abandoned in the kitchen, sunshine scents dulled and leaves twisted.
A row of sparkling glass bottles empty of your favourite cloudy lemonade.
I blow the ink, infusing my heart into the paper.
Rolling my words to you until they press against one another, I slide them through the thin neck.
Cork moulds to glass, locking them inside, safe from harsh elements.
My eyes close, praying you are too.
The echo in my mind never fades, ricocheting until I can hardly hear the waves roar.
Where are you?
With wind-whipped hair and salty, sand-gritted eyes, I stand on the towering cliffs, chalk bright under billows of leaden clouds.
I hurl my plea into the ferocious sea with an anger matching the storm.
Will it listen?
The sun rises and sets. Tides ebb and flow. Nature’s rhythms won’t wait.
No flash of white sails. No glimpse of red hull. No more bottles.
They carry me—my love, my fear, my hope—across the ocean, safe inside their glass walls.
Where are you?
People hover on the edges, ready to catch me if I fall.
I won’t give up.
I know you’re out there.
It’s time to come home, my love.
oh wow! beautiful sparrow!
DeleteWordcount 197
ReplyDeleteSherbert20111 on FF
Outside, the wind plays merry hell with the chimes as a car pulls into the drive. Only those with a calling and dog-walkers go out in this kind of weather. Max and I have already been for our morning constitutional. His tail thumps heavily when I stir myself from the cold spot by the window and his nails scrabble on the bare boards as the door knocker clacks.
“Good boy, hush now.”
The walls phase familiarly, from cracked anaglypta, to fresh plasterwork in the hallway. 'Wildacre' was cheap for a reason, not all of which were listed by the agent.
“Hi, you must be Sam? I’m Ellie.”
“Right, we spoke earlier. I’ve done some research, her name was Bethany. Have you seen her?”
I let the weather in with him, laughing at myself trying to put my hair back in to some sort of order. It doesn’t matter, not really.
“Not exactly,” pointing to where Max’s bib hangs. Maybe it’s not that obvious. I don’t use a cane in the house.
I thought spook hunters were all crackpots, but he sounds normal enough. Like a kid with a new toy actually.
“She’s friendly, go and say hello.”
Eternally Edward's GIrl
ReplyDeleteTwitter: Jude0522
Word count: 156
Kaleidoscope
This day was bound to come; ironic that it should be grey and gloomy. Will my soul feel like this while we're apart? Surely not, I plead as a single tear rolls down my cheek; surely not.
The short time spent with you was immeasurable, and every precious moment is now catalogued and locked deep within my heart.
Here and now I vow: I will push past the haggard clouds and reach toward the sun. I'll unlock those memories one at a time, and make them anew – each shining bright.
Your sweet face.
The smile that reflected in your eyes; on your lips.
Your breath upon my skin.
Warm and inviting I welcomed your kisses.
Fingertips caressing; tender, revealing the depth of your love.
Our bodies moving together, perfect mirror images.
We were made for each other, my love, and until we're together again, anytime it rains, I'll be searching for our very own rainbow.
Eternally Edward's Girl
ReplyDeleteTwitter: Jude0522
Word count: 156
Kaleidoscope
This day was bound to come; ironic that it should be grey and gloomy. Will my soul feel like this while we're apart? Surely not, I plead as a single tear rolls down my cheek; surely not.
The short time spent with you was immeasurable, and every precious moment is now catalogued and locked deep within my heart.
Here and now I vow: I will push past the haggard clouds and reach toward the sun. I'll unlock those memories one at a time, and make them anew – each shining bright.
Your sweet face.
The smile that reflected in your eyes; on your lips.
Your breath upon my skin.
Warm and inviting I welcomed your kisses.
Fingertips caressing; tender, revealing the depth of your love.
Our bodies moving together, perfect mirror images.
We were made for each other, my love, and until we're together again, anytime it rains, I'll be searching for our very own rainbow.
Word Count: 199
ReplyDeleteBitter tears blur the cold rain drops. A blanket of frost covers my soul wracking my body with shivers.
All this time, and still I don’t know where you are. I whisper your name; the intimacy of it wraps around my tongue and fogs the window.
Distorted shadows move down the sidewalk, soft laughter causes my heart to skip.
I raise my hand to brush away the mist, stopping myself just in time. Sorrow catches in my throat. It’s a chance I can’t take.
My mind recreates your smile, your eyes, you.
“I love you, you know that, right?”
My heart recalls the essence of your voice as it echoes’s within the realm of my memories. The torture of not knowing if we’ll ever have that moment again consumes me with desolation.
Hope is my only solace. My penance is nothing in comparison to your sacrifice. I may not know where you are, but I know you are. For now, that has to be enough.
Eyes closed, I press my lips against the icy pane entreating the angels that watch over you to carry my love swiftly that it may fill the hollow in your heart that emulates mine.
Pinkcookie (PM me at Pinkcookie fanfiction.net)
ReplyDeleteWord count: 178
Shit, shit, shit! Just kill me! My dress looks like a giant vanilla ice cream cone…so it will look just lovely once I go out in this mess! A melted puddle of vanilla ice cream. Shit, shit, shit. I know they say, “Happy the bride the sun shines on,” but what do they say about a dark, gray rainy day for the bride? I know they say, “If it rains on your Easter bonnet, it will rain the next seven Sundays.” But what about the bride who has to go out into a torrential downpour in a vanilla ice cream cone dress? WHAT DO THEY SAY FOR THAT? Just when I’m about to call the whole thing off, I hear a car horn and see you driving slowly by my house. You’re holding a sign…what does it say? I reach out to wipe the foggy window…it says: “I love you! Grab your umbrella and meet me at the church!” Oh yeah, I smile, that’s what they say a bride should do on a rainy wedding day!
cute!!!
DeleteTwitter handle: @sri_ffn
ReplyDeleteWord count : 199
According to Merriam Webster, Ungrateful is a person who "doesn't appreciate benefits received".
Am I ungrateful because I am less than pleased about this arrangement? Is it ungratefulness if the reality is not a benefit but the illusion of it? My life may look like a serene, beautiful lake surrounded by mountains to you. It may depict all the happiness in the world to you. May be that's all you see, because you see the illusion. Unfortunately, my life is not a lake of happiness. To be honest, it seems more like splattered droplets on a glass screen.
You may be blinded by his wealth, his success, his charm and his smiles. You may see them all as benefits I should be grateful for. I know better. He's a cruel heartless man who can never be human to anyone. He'll never father my children because he hates them, he’ll never care about me because ‘caring is an unaffordable weakness’ and I know he will never even smile at me because his facial muscles are incapable of emotions other than disdain.
I'm not ungrateful mother; I'm just a woman who wishes her man to not steal her reasons to live.
Twitter: @bigblueboat
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 116
****************************
one life becomes two
caresses cease
shared plates split to two and dwindle down to one
cold linens; only one half of tousled sheets
late nights in the office increase in frequency
comfort sought
lipstick stains appear and odd fragrances linger
words thrown in heat quickly followed by lamps and picture frames
doors slam, tires screech
comfort sought
blubbered words escape
words offered to placate
tears pour down a phone line
comfort sought
pounding on a door
muffled words that can’t be deciphered through the connection
a call forgotten
comfort overheard
dots connect
scents and lipstick shades belong to the other end of the line
their evasive tactics overlapping
comfort sought yet held out of reach
Twitter: @Twilightladies1
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 157
I pull the old woolen blanket tighter around my shoulders, seeking any sort of warmth. The power’s been out for hours now and the only source of light and heat comes from the small fireplace in the corner.
The wind continues to roar outside, rain pounding against the window, as I endure what should have been a romantic weekend away together. We should be celebrating our one year anniversary. We’ve survived so much together and things were finally getting on track for us.
We were happy...or so I thought.
We had a future together...or so I thought.
Sipping my wine, the tears fall and the memories overwhelm me. You had to work late and I wanted to surprise you.
I take another sip, letting the warmth flow through me. Its calming fog is not fast enough.
A pounding on the cabin door startles me.
You stand there, shivering and soaked to the bone.
“Please let me explain.”
awwww!! love it K, xx
DeleteTiramiSue84
ReplyDeleteWord count: 200
------
The glass felt cold on the side of my face, the heavy rain pelting against it sounded loud in my ears.
I watched as my breath fanned out over the window pane, leaving its faint, temporary trace there.
My gaze traveled from the thick clouds blanketing the sky back down to the busy street below.
There was so much life going on out there; this city was filled to the brim with it.
People were everywhere. Going about their lives, mingling, interacting.
Strangers, acquaintances, friends, lovers, couples, families.
There were hundreds of thousands of them out there, together and apart.
Meeting, laughing, dancing, singing, loving, screaming, touching, fucking, crying, mourning, leaving, dying.
Connected in one way or the other.
All of them.
Except for me.
Even after two years.
I craved this connection.
Body, heart, mind, soul.
Any form or shape.
Just... something.
Anything.
I wrapped the blanket closer around me, bury my nose in the fabric, close my eyes to kill the stinging.
I refused to give in, for if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop.
My tears would pour in millions in here just like they did outside.
Except, out there, nobody would be the wiser.
Twitter - megan_timms Word Count: 199
ReplyDelete---------------------------------------
Swirl. Flick. Drip.
My finger traces a single letter on the window. My heavy breath fogs it up again, as I watch the rain pelt down on the glass.
Always waiting.
Rain continues to pound, bouncing off the pavement. Smiling, I remember the last time it rained like this. We jumped; danced in the spray, the water raining down as you rained kisses all over my face, our laughter the only sound for miles.
Still waiting.
Last time, snow covered the ground. The dogs stayed in that winter, as if they sensed I needed their company.
Every time, you might not come back. The longer I wait, the more the fear overwhelms me, crushing my chest and twisting like a knife in my gut.
As headlights shine up the driveway, my finger freezes on the window.
I’m done waiting.
The screen door swings open and there you are. Pale, drawn and tired, but more beautiful than ever in your white t-shirt and army fatigues.
I rush to you, you drop to your knees.
Your arms swirl around my hips and you rest your head on my abdomen, round with new life.
You came home to me. To us.
my favorite... pinkcookie
Deletethanks pinkcookie!! x
DeleteMy Husband (who rose to my challenge (way outside his comfort zone))
ReplyDeleteWord count: 175
He looked across the way and spotted her. He wondered why she looked so lost in thought. He never had the courage to walk across and talk to her. Seeing her lost look he wondered…
She looked out and saw the rain and the weather matched her mood, as she looked out she spotted a man looking at her. When she glanced away she saw her reflection in the window. She wondered how her life had taken her to this moment. She asked herself why she listened to “friends” who told her not to waste her time on him that someone better was around the next corner or that her ideas were silly. She asked herself why she didn’t do things for her and why she was always trying to please others. She stared at the reflection of herself and reached out to stroke her face and only felt the cold glass.
He watched her and saw her reach for the window and he saw a tear rolling down her cheek and he wondered why?
Word count: 198 in GDocs
ReplyDelete@sandyquill
= = =
It broke her heart to see her daughter thus. To see the vibrant girl sit, poised by the window, waiting. Sightless eyes unfocused, hand barely caressing the cool pane of glass.
“Sweetheart? I made some hot cocoa, with the Hershey’s, like you like it.”
No answer. Not even a puff of breath to warm the glass.
Unable to relax, the mother held her own cocoa, the heated cup warming her palms. She stood in shadow, her heart twisting in her chest.
The beverage cooled, unsipped, unremembered. Rain clouds slid away to reveal a ribbon of sunlight that touched the grass outside the window. An engine roared before cutting away to silence and her daughter gasped.
It was him.
As a mother, she didn’t know whether to hug the guy or kick him in the balls for making her daughter cry.
“Mom?” Her daughter stood slowly, limbs stiff with a day’s worth of stillness. “Is it...?”
“It is.”
The girl wobbled to her, hands out in front of her.
Cupping the girl’s face, the mother kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be right here.”
With confidence bred of years of sightless motion, the girl stepped to the front door.
Word Count: 169
ReplyDelete@boomboom_jones
As she packs her lunch for school she watches her dad tinker with pieces of metal, wire, and string. Another wind chime to add to the hodgepodge that swathe their home. The slightest breeze will set off a symphony of dings and clangs – thank goodness the neighbors stopped complaining months ago. The young girl thinks their sound is beautiful, not ugly. What do they know, anyway? She tells herself it’s her brother, that he shares stories of sky and stars. Her mom never listens, though, even when the young girl begs. Her mom will only stand at the window when it storms. She’s decided that it’s because her mom can see him then. In the changing shapes and the dripping drops, that’s her mom’s way. But how dumb is that. Why wouldn’t mom choose his voice over something so blurry? The young girl’s father has made chimes for her bedroom. She pushes at them with hopeful fingers and listens. She says hello and goodbye, good morning and good night.
@CrackedFic
ReplyDelete154 words
***
Epitaph
* there are no windows in prison.
* sometimes the guards fuck the inmates.
* with great power comes great responsibility.
* or, conversely, irresponsibility.
* no outside electronic devices are permitted.
* but neither is guard-inmate sex.
* a camera can be hidden nearly anywhere these days and smuggled in.
* strip searches don't work when the subject is forced to perform fellatio.
* the showers steam up the stainless steel mirrors.
* it takes her seven tries to get the photograph right.
* it is difficult to take a picture of a steamed-up mirror.
* they say a photograph can free the subject's soul, the same way a mirror can trap it.
* what they say is true.
* it will be sad to say goodbye to my friend, but I am ready to go.
* fifty eight years is too long to be trapped in a mirror.
- Barbara Graham, an innocent woman, executed at San Quentin State Prison in 1955, set free in 2013
Chills all over.
DeleteWOW! love it!
Delete200 words
ReplyDeleteTwitter - @Aleeab4u
. . .
She stares at the photograph, sipping her chilled complimentary wine. She's viewed all of the photography showing in the gallery tonight, but only this one drew her back.
"Like it?"
The voice has a warm male timbre, easily recognizable with its Scottish burr.
Connor Malcolm. Famed photographer. Handsome, powerful, everything she's ever wanted and more. It's his work she can't drag her eyes from.
"I don't know," she answers truthfully.
He laughs softly. "You've been staring at it for near twenty minutes."
She starts at this. "Really?"
"What do you see that draws you so?"
"It's haunting. She's been hurt, and she's sad, alone." The opinion is out before she can censure herself. She doesn't want to insult him, finding melancholy where none may exist. Still, the photograph makes her yearn, as if it's her in the picture, watching the rain, searching for connection.
Connor moves closer.
"She's only looking in the wrong direction," he replies quietly, voice a caress. "She doesn't see what's right behind her."
His fingers skim across skin bared where her dress dips, making her shiver and wish she was brave.
"It's never that simple."
"It is, lass. All you have to do is turn around."
. . .
@femme_mal
ReplyDelete197 words
_____
She thinks of her every time it rains like this, slow drops trailing like tears as she hums a tune.
A teen girl’s image shimmered — the petite bit of spunk with penny-bright hair and bronze freckles, smelling Heaven Scent, swinging her doll-like while Richard Harris crooned.
The teen became the woman, herding her own tiny children around a Thanksgiving table while explaining why her sister and brother-in-law were such assholes to their first-born.
Recollection limned the red-headed spitfire who’d said sotto voce, You weren’t the first baby but the second, disclosing the truth of grim wedding day faces in a washed-out black-and-white photo.
Rain evoked the truth-bearer, who loved the niece whose parents could not make themselves accept the replacement created after the shotgun.
He’s a good man, your father. He didn’t have to, but he did.
It wasn’t enough to be good, bruises proved. Better was needed, but never attained.
But this secret kept; she never knew.
Before her ginger mop faded, or her tongue’s edge dulled, cancer snuffed the light-bearer.
Before her teen-aunt's favorite song - released the year she graduated and married - slipped from memory.
MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark...
142 words
ReplyDelete@PrecariousState
Haunting your image is
behind my eyes in front
of my eyes
branded into my sight
layered over the world—
a ghost
Why was it you that stayed longest
and then it was you that left first
and I was huddled and alone
curled into myself
losing reality with loose
breaths
I am tethered to what I see by your face
and hand
was it you reaching for me
passed what was natural
or were you letting go
My shirt what is left of my shirt
is wrinkled flowers
from your hands
grasping
matching
the prints I left on you
I do not recall rain’s rhythm
but its faltering beat
hammers
into me and I
wonder if you still here it
i am surrounded in a
madness
of rain
and your image
and I am isolated with
the pounding loss of you
Pinkcookie (PM me at www.fanfiction.net/Pinkcookie)
ReplyDeleteWord Couont: 182
As I stand in the downpour and stare into the dark, rain-streaked window, I can feel your fist squeezing my heart. It’s as though the rain drops are my salty tears; tears that I cried and cried and cried. When I lost you, I thought I would never stop crying. But I stopped and the judge says I am a free woman…that I killed you in self-defense. A flash of lightening shows the bedroom where it happened in frighteningly clear relief. It is empty now. All the furniture is gone; the blinds and drapes pulled from the windows; the blood splatters cleaned from the walls and floor. The realtor says the house won’t be easy to sell. For now, I am content to stand in the rain and peer into the window of the room that was my prison for far longer than the cell where I spent a few weeks. Content to let the rain wash away my guilt until I can hardly feel your fist squeeze my heart at all. The weather report says it will be sunny tomorrow.
Word count 106 @niko0921
ReplyDeleteSpace. Watching out the window as he loads the last box of his things in his car. Space. There is extra space in the dresser now that his clothes are gone. Space in the closet where his coat used to hang. This tiny apartment seemed so cramped with our stuff and now there's just empty space. He looks up and waves. I press my hand to the glass. My heart is shattered. I want to run out in the rain and beg him to not to leave me but I can't move from the window, I'm numb. I'm lost. I'm lost in all this empty space.
@denverpopcorn
ReplyDelete190 words
_____
At the airport, the Marine carried her bags to the gate.
"You're a wild one, aren't you," he had said, but that was not what turned her head. It was the ownership. The way he presumed to be more than a stranger she had only just met during a layover. He had boasted of surprising his mother with a visit.
There was rain on the tarmac. She looked past it. Then the pilot announced it was time to turn off all electronic devices, the lifeline to her husband who hadn't called. No surprise.
But the bag carrier, he sat ten rows in front of her. She counted. She shouldn't have, but she did.
Anna and the Marine, she thought for a name of this story she tinkered with during the flight. The details had yet to be sorted. They had yet to land, after all.
When they arrived three states over, her heart hammered. She should stroll past him. Flash a brief smile. Good-bye.
But he had waited for her.
"How long is your layover?" Full of nerve, this one.
"Four hours," she said, walking. She caught his smile anyway.
@Alesoflyy
ReplyDelete200 words
Tiny raindrops slide down the windowpane, merging and splitting off into larger and smaller droplets as they make a race to the bottom.
I’ve been sitting in the living room window alcove for nearly half an hour now—since the light sprinkle turned into downpour—wishing and dreaming.
Many people think the rain is depressing. For me, it’s a new sensation—the mud squishing between your bare toes; the earthy taste of the drops on your tongue; the cool feel of it on your skin; the pounding droplets echoing against wood, glass, and concrete.
But nothing but the sound and smell of it can I experience.
I am locked away.
I'm may not be locked away high in the clouds in a tower, awaiting my prince charming to rescue me; nor in a prison cell, rotting, but I am locked away nonetheless.
I am locked away from you, a person I long to know; to touch; to taste; to feel and hear and be surrounded by. I long for you in the most delicious of ways, and you break my heart every time, every day you don’t look my way.
When will you see me, the girl in the window?