On Wattle Street.....
Chapter One
‘Fuck Chocolates’
I came back to my old town to die. A quick death, hopefully. But one which would at least warrant some kind of emotional outburst from my mother. A woman I would most definitely die to please.
She was old and wretched and had been ever since her husband died. My brother says she lost her faith. I say she lost her mind. And to top it off, she’d made my life her focal point for the past year, which meant phone calls throughout the night telling me what a bad daughter I’d been.
Really?
I wasn’t the one who abandoned her kids for a man who could care less. I wasn’t the one who spent every last dime on ridiculous business ventures just to please an emotionally retarded and inept human fossil.
But then again, what was the point? When really all she ever wanted was to just bury me deep into her past along with the devil himself - who was - the other half of my parentage, my father, John Balgan.
The one individual on earth who she loathed more than me.
She hated him. Couldn’t stand him. Once she told me she tried to kill him. Once she told me she almost paid someone else to.
How they ever had sex I still can’t even begin to fathom. The two were like Frodo and the fucking ring and I am yet to determine which is which.
‘Well look who decided to come home’ my mother said as she took another long drag from her slim line cigarette and arched her eyebrow like some evil fairy tale witch.
So it begins, I thought as I stood there on the side walk, the screeching of the taxi as it took off to freedom a perfect welcoming committee on a perfectly dreary, rainy and straight up shit day.
I couldn’t look like I was crawling home on my hands and knees more, even if God herself came down and kicked me in the vagina while singing there she goes just a walking down the street.
Thirty four and alone – again – fuck me…
‘Hello mother’ I smiled as my black leopard carry on slipped off my ridiculously white shoulder and fell to the once golden but now soggy and worthless like my life leaves.
She rolled her eyes, here it comes….. wait for it…..there’s the cigarette flick, the eye roll, the turn toward the door and ….. and…..
‘Her father’s daughter’ …..there you go! Never one to disappoint her fans, the world’s worst mother ladies and gentleman.
I straightened up, clutching my sides with my fists as I looked toward the castle of doom that was, the witch's house.
‘I’m fine’ I whispered, barely even that, ‘Okay…. One week, one week Jay’ yep that’ll work, lies.
I leant over, picked up the remnants of my life and wattled home like the coward I was. I needed whiskey and I needed a cigar. Fuck chocolates.
Friday Feature: @Shells
Another week has whizzed past, like pages turning in a book - which means it's nearly the goshdarn weekend already. Which also means only one thing. Friday Feature is about to propel another lovely Proser into the spotlight. This week we meet a totally smashing and very active Proser who you probably know as @Shells.
P: What is your given name and your Proser username?
S: My given name is Shelley. With the second E. Leaving it out is a severe pet peeve. It shouldn't be a big deal but it means the difference in whether my Father is correct and I was named after Country singer Shelly West (notably Second E-Less) or my Mother is correct and I was, in fact, named after poet Percy Shelley. My Prose name is Shells. Which is what most everyone in my life calls me. Unless my Mother is angry...yeah...we all know the FULL name treatment.
P: Where do you live?
S: I was born in Rural Kentucky. Where I spent my formative years. Raised on a working farm. I completed high school through a Christian School in Pensacola, Florida and made it back home by way of Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.
P: What is your occupation?
S: Oh God Damn, I hate this question because of the stigma that comes with it. But...I'm an executive director for the Miss America Organization at State and Local level. I am currently over two Miss Titles and one Outstanding Teen. (For bragging rights...My OT kicked some serious ass and took some serious names at state this year.) I'm also an Image and pageant consultant.
I’m also the co-founder of a Non-profit organization called First Chances, which advocates for Children's Rights. It's something incredibly close to my heart, for various reasons. But the goal is to fight for the child to have a chance at a normal life and oftentimes that isn't by reuniting them with their biological parents. On some occasions it is. But the purpose is to fight for the children of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to have a first chance at succeeding. As opposed to always giving the biological parent a "second chance." (My friends at Prose will understand why this is a difficult role to play).
P: What is your relationship with writing and how has it evolved?
S: I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I lost my eldest brother to suicide at a very young age and began writing letters to him as a child. Childish dribble really. Things he'd missed. Tennis matches and our brother's baseball championships. I didn't realize until much later that it was a child's way of coping with the aftermath. But, therapeutically, it grew on me. Writing became my scapegoat as a pre-teen and teen in Kentucky. It allowed me to deal with the constant bullying in my hometown. Be it tennis accomplishments or tiaras or sexuality; there was always backlash. Thankfully when I left the school system in my tiny hometown I held onto writing and it’s been my life force and my outlet ever since.
We've had a love/hate relationship. On again and off again if you will. But I'm very thankful that my pen and I have reconciled and I'm happy to report our relationship is going strong
P: What value does reading add to both your personal and professional life?
S: Reading and writing to me have always gone hand and hand. It's an escape from the intensity of the world. When I'm engrossed in a book or an article or what have you; it takes you to another place, another time, another city. There are no real boundaries when one picks up a read. You can go anywhere, be anyone and escape the pressures of reality until you meet "The End".
P: Can you describe your current literary ventures and what can we look forward to in future posts?
S: I don't really suppose I have any. I have amazing friends and an amazing support system behind me. But I don't see the point in chasing someone to publish my work. I'm not even certain that's a lofty goal to spend my time on.
P: What do you love about TheProse.com?
S: Prose has proven to be an intricate part of my life. I've met so many amazing talents and just genuinely wonderful people through Prose. The community is an amazing group of amazing writers. But that isn't the thing...everyone there wants to encourage others to branch out and succeed. I like that everyone, honestly, wants every writer to grow. It's such a wonderful group of people and I am so thankful for the friends I have made here. There have been days I would have been lost without my Etched In Ink Posse. All people I have had the honor of knowing through Prose.
P: Is there one book that you would recommend everybody should read before they die?
S: That's entirely too difficult. A Tale of Two Cities will always have my heart. But then there's Hemingway and Faulkner and freaking To Kill a Mocking Bird and In Cold Blood and every Tennessee Williams play ever put in print. And Fannie Flagg. Jesus, it's too much. Howl changed my life but I can’t say it changed it more than A Clockwork Orange or C.S Lewis or The Hobbit or Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee or Huxley...
P: Do you have an unsung hero who got you into reading and/or writing?
S: Not exactly. I guess my therapist was right it all goes back to my brother. Honestly I think I was born to write.
Whether it's bullshit drunken dribble or a college thesis. I love words and stringing my thoughts and feelings together on paper. It helps me make sense of the world and my head.
P: Describe yourself in three words?
S: Oh hell...I got this so much in pageant interviews. Roots And Wings
P: Is there one quote, from a writer or otherwise, that sums you up?
S: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
P: Favourite music to write and/or read to?
S: If you've read my work you know it often has a dark undertone. I tend to write in silence but when I do listen to music... it's typically my best friend’s covers of old school country.
P: You climb out of a time machine into a dystopian future with no books. What do you tell them?
S: Haha, that I'm about to rock their world and from that point on...I... wait... for...it...commit the unthinkable and plagiarize the greatest writers in the world. (Some of which I've met on Prose) and then I become a literary genius!!! Yep, that's how I'd roll.
P: Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you/your work/social media accounts?
S: I don't have much going on. Unless someone wants to step up and offer a scholarship to one of the girls in my pageant pursuing a career in literary arts *wink* - shameless I know.
But if anyone else wants to write some kickass shit to my best friends tunes check her out... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7VfOOzMXSqw
What an excellently honest and open interview from @Shells there. If you don't already do so, please check her out, follow her, interact and read her awesome words.
Do you want to be featured, or would you like to nominate someone to be featured in a future Feature Friday? If so, get in touch on paul@theprose.com with the details.
Guns and Bibles
I yearned to rule the world
And so, I built a church
Convincing all my brethren
That the godless we must hurt
Some were unbelievers
And so, I sewed a flag...
Of honor did we sing
Killing conquering everything
Whenever peace should threaten
Give 'way more books and guns
That every fledgling nation learns
War's lucrative and fun
I count my gold upon a throne
Built of bloody bones,
"Would you like a bible?
"Here's a gun, protect your home..."
-DeRicki
Track Marks
The last time I saw him he was high. I missed my physics final to be there and he wasn’t even at the airport. What got on the plane was something that was pretending to be him. The tears he was crying were something grotesque and fake and mimetic of genuine feelings. Crying to just mirror my own, a horrible perversion of something deliberately buried.
We couldn’t spend any time together and he wasn’t there so what did it matter? I was alone. I was alone for hours sitting at the terminal and I was alone for maybe days before. I could never tell. I always trusted him.
I don’t know when he really left.
I don’t know when his mind came back to him.
Earlier in the week I knew you were fucked up, your best friend knew you were fucked up. Your fucking arms were scabbed and bruised and obvious and you told me you were clean. How dare I accuse you of using again, I don’t know anything about what you’re doing, that I always accuse you of being a liar. Well, you lied to me. I found the pills. I found the bottles. I found the wrappers in the trash.
You made me cry, cry all the way home. Cry because I was worried about you and you were an asshole, a lying asshole. I cried and you accused me of being hysterical, said I had no right. I tried to sleep in your sister's room that night and I would have. I was disgusted with you then. But you told me to look at you after you had calmed down. You talked to me through the duvet I had over my head and you convinced me to look at you, slowly because I was adamant that you were an asshole then as I am adamant now. But somehow you convinced me it was alright.
Then you did it again.
You've been gone for three months now and we've been separated for one. I've been writing notes to try to remember all of the reasons to not take you back because sometimes I forget. Sometimes I see the hearts next to your name saved in my contacts and have to remind myself to delete them later.
You are finally good to me in my dreams and it's waking up from those that are the worst. Worse than remembering to not answer the phone.
If I don't say a word, they will read it in my expression. I've been told that I have a very emotive face, and truly, those who've told me aren't wrong. In my eyes, my life story plays in a loop of horror and romantic tragedy, but the remote to pause, or even stop the movie went missing long ago. From my cheeks burn a rosy fire of passionate embarrassment; they glow radiant tales of love and loss, the life of a teenage wannabe. My ears wiggle with the words of my friends and the secrets that it takes such effort to keep quiet; my tongue bears the weight of a thousand worlds and the lightness of free speech. My hair frames the sharp chin cut to a knife's blade by the swords of bullies words, and the scar on my forehead reminds me of a fight long ago.
But the one thing they'll never know.. the one thing that is only mine, it's found somewhere quieter than my loud mouth or shouting eyes. My darkest secret is found below my t-shirt, around my hips. It's mine, it's mine, it's mine.
Hurricane
She holds secrets in her heart
Hidden under happy memories of her children
You have to go through hell to find it
But they're there
Sometimes patient, lying in wait
Other times digging, clawing, pounding
Behind the locked and bolted door
Sometimes you will see glimpses of it
Catching a moment of it in her eyes
When she thinks no one is looking
You can see them in the way she walks
Slowly as if with caution
The way she dresses in neutral colors and with modesty
To blend in
On the outside she appears quite composed
But if you could see deep enough into the darkness of her eyes
You would see there is a hurricane always brewing