I have a question for the prose writers…

If anyone who has been in any sort of abusive relationship on here and left the situation, do you guys have flashbacks?

worry about ticking someone else off knowing they would never do anything to you?

Flinch when someone is too close to you? you know all of it.

Or if someone new comes along, does your trust suddenly go out the door and super guarded, that you’re terrified that it will be the same except with the new partner?

Even though you know what red flags to look for, more self aware… that little fear stays in the back of your mind.

Clearly, I haven’t healed from this situation, or else I wouldn’t be feeling this way. These are the questions I constantly ask myself and I know I can’t be the only one on here.

Ps- I most likely might delete this later, but it’s been on my mind and I wanted to ask.

The Lost Recipes of chef photogardener 16

My Kids Coconut Squares

Prep Time: 15 mins

Total Time: 40 mins

Serves: 24,

Yield: 6 cookies

About This Recipe

"My kids loved helping me make these cookies so much that one of them taught her children to make them so they have been a family tradition for 45 years.

They are excellent shippers and keepers."

Ingredients

1/2 cup soft butter

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup sifted flour

2 slightly beaten eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 ounces flaked coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup sifted flour

1 cup packed light brown sugar

Directions

Into a large bowl put:.

1 / 2 cup soft butter.

1 / 2 cup packed light brown sugar.

beat until fluffy then add:.

1 cup sifted flour

mix well then pat into a greased 12 X 9 X 2 pan

and bake this cookie dough at 350 for 10 minutes.

While the above is baking using that same bowl:.

place.

2 slightly beaten eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt.

2 teaspoons vanilla.

4 ounces of flaked coconut.

Directions

1 cup of any liked nut but I use walnuts

1/4 cup sifted flour

1 cup packed light brown sugar.

Mix well and spread over the warm cookie dough that just came out of the oven

and return to the oven for 15 minutes.

As soon as it comes out of the oven ( and is still hot) score it into

1 inch squares and this should make 6 dozen one inch cookies.

leave in the pan to cool then take out and separate -- Freezes well and ships well.

NUTRITION FACTS

Serving Size: 1

Servings Per Recipe: 24

Calories 170

© Julia A Knaake

Songs are mirrors to the soul, or so they say.

I personally have known many shitty people whose taste in music was amazing. My first intro into Metal and Grunge land was through someone whom I considered back then a friend, when she closed her eyes one day and sang "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. She sounded like a dark angel, reminiscent of anime and punk rock femmes, and she instilled in me the love of metal, punk, rock, and grunge from that moment on.

My first Bryan Adams was through a boy, whose name was so weird everybody laughed at him but me.

Physically he was not at all my type, tall, looming, muscular, hairy with a full stubble and a loud voice. I prefer sensitive, vulnerable men who are skinny and fragile. But the boy with a lady's name -a gender, biased functional fixedness- was underneath all that layers someone who saw something different in me.

I still remember going to his parents' house, eating dinner there. Family friends they were, and nights spent at their house were so much fun, all thanks to him.

Visiting the relatives was as fun as a dentist's appointment to me back then. Things changed now, since I barely visit relatives, unless I loved them truly, madly, deeply. But as a middle-class Egyptian family, growing up, I would get invited to all kinds of relatives' houses. The old, the fancy, the lanky, and the ugly. Houses have always reeked of their inhabitants' lives and personalities, and the boy with the lady's name house always smelled of cooked meat, sounded like a stereo system gone wild, and there was always someone there who didn't belong to any of the families involved, visiting or resident.

I wouldn't say that I got attracted to the boy with a lady's name at first sight. He wasn't my type, nor was he even a movie buff or bookish, the favorite kind of (potential boyfriend/friendzone type back when I was a teenager. He was made for girls other than me; tall, confident, loud and extroverted like his family. He was a different breed than mine, but little did I know, that what separated our world completely from each other would be the thing that connected us, at least for a moment.

I still remember the beef sandwiches and large cans of coke that we would consume at his parents' house, how he had this special place which he called his spot, it was a round room, with a few chairs and a round table, the room was connected directly to the balcony, but the view was a quiet side street so we always stayed there contemplating art, talking about horror and action movies, throw in a little romantic comedy (Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock reigned at the time) with a bit of the epic dramas that were popular back then. He hated Titanic and Leo Dicaprio, but we both loved Braveheart and thought it was a romantic movie at its core, not merely a battle, war one.

I don't remember the time when he has told me about Bryan Adams. I have always been a music hoarder at heart. Me and my sister inherited that from our mother who had always been open to exploring new music, even bizarre tracks, different from her regular taste. We take it -I reckon- after our late grandmother who has passed it down to our mother one calming moment when she has been pregnant with her. So, as we explored and exchanged music, through cassette tapes, a habit associated with 90s and 00s kids it had become a staple of the era. He suddenly went, "Ever heard the song When you Love Someone?"

I hadn't. Somehow it sounded corny, even back at the day, but I had always believed not to judge a song by its name, nor a book by its cover, so I said nonchalantly, munching on the tasty roast beef sandwich, "Let's hear it."

He smiled, put down his plate, and as he inserted the cassette inside the large stereo cassette deck that he owned, and I secretly pined after, comparing it to the shrimp of a cassette tape player that I had back home, closed the cassette bay, and pressed one of the smooth looking -by the 2000s standards- electronic push buttons.

And then, the magic began.

As soon as the pan flute played, I was transported to another time, a different time zone and a geographical paradisiacal planet where I could hide, not to be found. I got immersed in the song, not for the lyrics, but for Bryan's raspy voice, and another thing, I was looking in the eyes of boy with a lady's name, only to find tears in his eyes. He was looking at me intently, my gaze met his and I felt a shiver run down my spine. Boy was there something between us?

Was that love? A guy as loud, brooding, and broad-shouldered as boy with a lady's name, with a laugh that dominates the room into submission, could actually have feelings for me?

Me? Loud and sassy poet with dark mood swings and a thing for vulgar jokes and disgusting stories? Me? Fragile and hypersensitive poet whose hunger for the unknown was incomparable.

The song progressed and we stayed in silence, the food unchewed in my mouth, some beef strings stuck between my gum and my molars. His plate remained untouched, our coke long gone flat and warm as cans remained on the round table.

The song ended. He stood up shyly and handed me the cassette tape and asked me to return it whenever it suited me.

But I never did.

I don't remember visiting the relatives after that time. I probably gave the tape to another relative after abusing the replay button of my Walkman, listening to the song over and over again. When I finally saw the boy with lady's name a year or more had passed, and I had lost him to masculinity. He became strong, confident, cocky, and uncaring. He only talked about politics or sports, and he showed disinterest in music and movies. He had grown up and crossed to the Man land, leaving me behind as a teenager frustrated with the complex gender dynamics where half of the girls I knew became too feminine, too reserved and coy, and half of the boys I knew turned rough on the edges, not easily touched or affected by the complex tragedies and epiphanies of life.

Boy with a lady's name grew up to be a banker, a man with problems, marital casualties, a looming divorce and teenage kids. I became a writer, and I hadn't met him since. Maybe we passed by each other in the street once or twice, but we were both unrecognizable from that moment when we briefly shared an encounter worthy of a Bill Wilder movie, not a middle-class Saturday dinner.

But the beauty of the art is that it remains, ingrained and unpolished, raw and mystique, even if the faces and situations behind it dissolve into nothingness.

When my bird died

I searched for something more than a reprimand

a brief from a bored client who cannot figure out what his issues were

and where to take a vow of absence

I asked for the raindrops to fall down on the tombstone

where we buried his body

There was once a bird, who vibrantly cried

on the shoulders of a man who lost everything

except his wits

There they went

Backup plans and all

One day, the bird left the man

and there he stood speechless, pointless

staring at the curled legs inward

a body so warm it could flutter

a tiny beak

a faint glow in the unblinking eyes

The bird in the man stopped whistling

and the man in the bird grew old with grief

And the girl went to work

where lustful gals and guys asked her

"Why bother

Come hither

Lay all your worn out memories and your troubles at my feet"

They promised shots and screwdrivers and painkillers

and their shoulders

raw with hatred

jealousy and spite

to spill her secrets on

But the girl left the bird in the man

sprinkled breadcrumbs

invited another bird

and sat down to her desk

to write

First thing I do is race outside to catch the secrets as they blithely mutate into mundane, parralleling harmoniously with my passively vicious alarm clock, gobbling up all three of my uneven hands, so impatient to deposit me back into the Tumbler again for the daily soul stomping.

Waiting for your return is

the ticking of a clock

that is much too loud,

having to overhear

conversations of passersby,

it is the steady flow

of the traffic just outside of my window,

intrusive thoughts and their insistence.

Please return to me.

I need your arms to envelope me,

I need your whispers to tell me

of the worlds that only you create,

I long to be your slave once more.

Dinner was served.

A family of five.

The night was young.

Crows lurked outside.

“Pass the butter,” mother cried.

A blanket of tears choked her eyes.

Father stood and choked, grabbing his throat, he fell and died.

One by one the children dropped like flies.

The Lost Recipes of chef photogardener 15

Claudia's Zucchini Bread

TOTAL TIME

1hr 15mins

PREP 15 MINS

COOK 1 HR

Daughter Claudia and I made up this recipe when neighbors

brought us their extra zucchini Now they ask us for this moist recipe !

INGREDIENTS

SERVINGS

20

YIELD

20 lg pieces

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups zucchini, grated

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 cups flour, sifted

1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

3⁄4 cup nuts, chopped or 3/4 C dry cranberries or raisins *

DIRECTIONS

spray two 9x5 loaf pans and set aside.

Start the oven at 325.

Mix together:.

eggs,sugar,oil,zucchini and vanilla.

Add all the dry ingredients and mix well. Mix in the nuts or dry fruits.

Divide batter evenly between the two pans.

Bake at 325 for 60 minutes.

The 2 loaves make 20 servings.

* sometimes I will use a finely chopped apple

© Julia A Knaake

“Come here. Get your punishment.” The family giggled in expectation of seeing his naked buttocks bloody again.

Sticks hit him without pause. It was soon over.

The barbarians were coming.

Barbarians broke through the doors, and cries followed. He tried to hit the closest.

“Boy, you are dead. Give me your name, to sing it at my fire!” the warrior shouted.

Beh-lan” he cried.

Hit. Darkness.

A white-haired man stared at him.

“It’s him. The signs are all there.”

A warrior embraced him desperately.

“Belan, son! What can I do to forgive me?”

“Father, one gift only. Kill them all.”

The eyes are warning signs.

Dying on the edge of reality.

Thoughts of tomorrow grabbing me..

As I’m washed away with the morning tide.

Rushing to live because we’re born to die.

The mind is a minefield.

Memories explode into vivid clips making it hard to forget how dark times feel.

Our energy combined gives me spiritual spine chills.

I know it was God when your wine spilled.

The universe is my gym.

Lifting supernatural weights in a dark and distant realm.

At war with demons.

I got a few sores but most of them

are missing limbs.

For the sake of long lost Tim.

Our white, long, sweeping meat-butcher coats shake in the wind.