I ignored my doubts, my jangling warnings

overcome by his well practiced charm.

He smiled but it didn’t seem to touch

his eyes, it looked rehearsed but

I didn’t notice because they were so blue.

He said just what I wanted to hear -

you’re beautiful, a rose in my lapel.

He spun his web and trapped me there

I ignored whispers of malevolent voices

clanging and shouting to step away.

He liked to maintain power over my life,

was narcissistic and impulsive and reckless.

Sad to say, this attracted me -throbbing magnets

Antisocial, he was, except to me.

To me, he was Prince Charming in dulcet voice,

excusing himself often to snort cocaine

loving the high, enhancing his sexuality.

Seeming disassociated from world outside,

focusing on me and working his magic,

leading me step by step into his lair.

I followed him without a glance back,

he took what he wanted with force -

a coercive sex without love which

gave him excitement without guarantees

and then he added me to his string

of conquests by slitting my throat,

tossing me on the ground to decay.

A true psychopath with no warmth,

I should have been warned by his eyes.

Irma winks with hurricane eyes,

breathing fury crashing on sands.

Savagery of waves pounding,

nature destroying nature,

tangling Florida without reason -

a monster betraying our trust

tattooing tattered shores.

Unstable eyes of angry tempests

bleeding tears upon our beaches,

lightning punching in fury,

wavering sky threatening to swallow -

all in death refrain of a hangman,

forcing residents to forsake homes,

trembling limbs beset by carnage.

Gusts tossing screaming palms,

onyx gales strangling souls.

Life as we know it cast aside

as birds fly lifeless in raging sky,

trust betrayed by exploding thunder

leaving stairs leading nowhere.

Treacherous cobalt sky vents anger -

bloody aftermath of crimson rain.

Ambushed light laments and moans

as white witch leaves calling card

of tumbled loss and heartache.

Please stretch out your arms

to welcome me home

to my sacred place, unscathed

when storm’s wrath

and destruction is expended.

I beg to return once more

to my cherished cottage

by unspoiled seaside sand.

For those of you with novels ready to submit these publishers are accepting submissions. And this blog is an excellent source of info for writers. 

http://publishedtodeath.blogspot.jp/2017/09/11-literary-fiction-publishers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+PublishingAndOtherFormsOfInsanity+(Publishing+...+and+Other+Forms+of+Insanity)http://

Was supposed to hit 2000k words

by 1:00 pm, but instead, it's going on 

5 and I've barely squeezed out 500. 

Aspirin doesn't touch it and the 

magic herb is treated like owning 

weapons grade plutonium in this

country. 

1947 it was made illegal. Thanks GHQ.

Before then Sumo, Samurai and Ninja 

alike all got stoned I bet. 

        A monkey managed to speak the 

word, slicing reality despite sounding 

absurd at first. But the story was a hit, 

so there we would sit, while the fire lit 

the night, and witness pure wit and 

mind's eye with delight.

        Memory served us only so well 

so we weathered the letter to sharpen 

our spell, papyrus inviting us to author 

history. That story impressed majesties 

and propelled people to invent a printing 

machine. The press printed money in too 

many eyes, so the publisher was born, set 

to enterprise the new marketplace of minds.

        The publisher grew too bourgey so the 

agent took to stage with the typewriter device 

that turned our story's page. A gilded age 

exploited skills and wage to mass-produce 

page after page after page after page after page. 

Then paper met its maker and apotheosized 

into byte after byte after byte after byte after byte.

        The Realm's been in chaos since 

bookstores were laid off and Darth Vaders 

used the Verbal Force abusing Ockham's 

Razor. The Realm is quite due for something 

right and true to challenge all the madness 

and salvage sophisticated sadness from a 

delayed coup. 

maybe i’m a child

in the head

with a heart still set

on fairy tales,

but i know that love

is soft, like silk

and warm sands

and i know that hate

is coarse, like waves

on jagged rock

maybe i’m a child

in the heart

with a head still stuck

in day dreams,

but i know that love

is not these waves

in my chest

or these rocks

in my lungs,

and i know that hate

is not the child

in my head

and my heart,

day dreaming

of silk

and warm sands.

It is embarrassing to be assigned to this table again. But thank goodness, really, I don't want to sit with them. And I guess those are the only options: to be included or ignored.

Because kids should be seen, not heard.

I think that they pity me. The grow ups, that is. Well, some do, for sure. But the others don't seem to like me. At that's fine, if you ask me.

I'm not really a kid anymore, yet here I am at the kid table. I feel disproportionate, and oversized. I am grotesquely super-sized, compared to their perception of me.

And my knees hit the underbelly --

I wonder if this is her poker table. That's what we use ours for at home. But ours has a small tear, and I always poke my fingers into it. Its stuffing feels manufactured, just like me. And I always think about the things that I could hide inside its lining, but it'd have to be something small like an Ace rolled into a straw.

They still tease my sister for cheating at blackjack. She kept an Ace tucked under her leg, and she used it to win a couple hands before they noticed. My sister is smart, especially for an eight year old. And everyone finds her endearing, but mostly because she has dimples.

I love these glasses. The gold paint on the rim is chipping, but it seems right. I'm sipping a Roy Rogers, but pretending it's alcohol. And every mint that I eat, I swallow whole like a pill they are forcing me to take.

I wonder what these mints are called. I love the way they dissolve before you finish chewing. They remind me of Nona. I wish I could disappear before anyone noticed... just like a mint.

My mom keeps looking over. She nods like, although she is pleased, for now, she's not taking our goodness for granted. I think she'd rather be sitting with us, though. She escaped this town young, rebelling against its generations of full bred roots.

Okay. I think I've arranged my food enough to pass for "I'm full." A real lady never finishes her plate, after all. Gluttons are sinners and big-eaters aren't feminine.

As soon as my sister is done, I'll ask if we can be excused. If we walk past their table together, she'll grab their attention and I can evaporate.

I hate big holidays. I want to go home.

Entrées are damn good,

and so are appetizers;

but it's all just bites.