Air
A boy walked from the water, the wind blowing his somehow dry hair out of his face.
The girl at the edge of the lake smiled.
"Your awfully wet," They boy said smiling.
The girl stood up and wadded into the pool, "It was raining, what can I say?"
The boy tucked some of her black hair behind her ear. "If it was raining, why did you stay?"
"I like water."
"I know."
They sat back at the shore, hot dry wind blew at them, drying the girl.
"Where is your friend?" The boy asked. "I thought I heard him."
"Oh," The girl said, looking down. "He left when the rain came."
The boy nodded, smiling, "Maybe it came to drive him away."
"Maybe it did," She responded, smiling right back at him.
Overhead, there was the sound of thunder.
Eat Me
You know you want to.
Come closer, see
my translucent tendrils waving
in the current.
I was once living, like you.
I knew fire and pain
as my molecules collided
and merged.
I once served a purpose.
I held energy in place,
restrained it
with these tempting jellyfish arms.
Come closer, little one.
Let me wrap your neck in my love,
fill your stomach with my bulk.
I want to feel,
to be alive once more,
to serve my purpose,
before I drift for eons
in hot, dead seas.
What am I?
I lay here, discarded paper towels and bits of corrugated cardboard as my bed, my will to slip back into society sapped. With no roof above, my pockmarked skin browns in the sun.
Pulling strips of newspaper around myself, I tried to think back on the times when I had been happier--when I hadn't been so hollow--to see if I could scrounge up something of my former self.
You see, I had had a family. We were an inseparable bunch--sisters constantly bumping into each other and exchanging blows so much you'd think our parents would have sold us off to the farm.
But each scrape and bruise came from a place of love, and I cherished each scar.
A single man changed our entire life in an instant. At first, I thought I had been lucky to be chosen--my sisters, in fact, had been green with envy. But as soon as he ripped me away from my family, he changed. He became ravenous. Unconsolable. A man who lived for his voracious appetite, and not a single thing, including myself, could stop his violent hunger.
He tore through me, peeling away my self-worth bit by bit until I became nothing but skin and air. I had tried to cry out, tried to warn my family, but each cry had met his muffled grunts that demanded obedience.
After he had finished with me, he went for my sisters.
I opened my eyes.
I had survived somehow. He had taken my pride, my fullness of youth, my dignity. But stringy veins held me, and my skin, though withered, had toughed. Though I lie among refuse, I am not discarded.
One day, I will stand again.
What am I? (Answer below)
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*
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(answer: I am a banana peel.)
16
He shouldn't have done what he did.
My baby hair had just fallen out.
If you never did it (and I hope you never will) the dullness is better. The impact is way more succinct.
Never to condone.
But always one to understand.
I wish that reach to escape from pain on no one. But know, i still trace them all, and realize that I survived each one. Never condone, but always understand.
The maps on our arms are just warning alarms. I hope one day I'll be able to turn the alarm off and get some sleep.