Ms. Taken

"Do you remember that time?", he said, excited like a child, a sparkle in his eye and mischief in his smile. "That time when I grabbed your hand, and we ran beneath the flicker of lamplight; to that little place, a corner in the dark alley we know so well?"

"No", she says, coolly, "You did that with someone else; I'm married, you see. Clearly, you're mistaken."

On Luminous Skin

I watch the sunlight travel across your shoulder; with its supernatural powers, the sun unearths your skin's natural iridescence - you glow warmth from within. A single ray spills onto your face and pours itself into the depth of your jewel tones, but failing the mark it bounces and scatters as radiant reflections. Even the translucent waves clings to your skin, as if to siphon some of your brilliance and selfishly retain it. Lost in your glitter, I scarcely notice you staring at me watching you sunbathe.

portrait #3

immature,
you held on
to your thoughts and ideas
and conversations that were meant to be

stubborn.
like a tiny child
holding on to a dream
and refusing dinner for a unicorn

or ingenuous.
like an adult
who saw a beautiful hat
in a store window
and came back later
to buy it, but it was gone

Teeth

He said something funny. She began to laugh. Wide, happy, unabashed, mouth-open laughter. And that's when he saw them. Within her mouth were rows and rows and rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. Uncomfortable. Like too many layers of clothing. Cluttered. Like bats on the ceiling of a cave. Sharp. Like knives on display at a butcher's shop. He tried not to say anything funny for the rest of the evening.

#MicroFiction

his heart was a stone, a diamond in the rough

Dreams, awaking...

You wake, the rain is coming down in sheets. The bed is cool but not warm and your pillow is soft. You feel calm and pleasant, but you're burning a bitter cold within. On the window ledge, a little squirrel takes shelter from the rain. The room is empty, sleep throws her bony fingers in your face again.

-
You wake, consciousness is dim. The trees glow faintly green; the smell of the earth is rising as the rain settles. You listen for the sound of water trickling into a stream; the feeling calms you. You begin to rise, but the movement tires you; you slip away again.
-
You wake, her head is on your pillow, her tiny, warm frame fits kindly in your arms. Peacocks gaze through the shuttered glass as sun spills through the sky lights; the room is a lot less cold now. More for your sake than hers, you hold her tight. Sleep pulls the wool over your eyes again.
-
You wake, the rain still falls relentless; your first thought is to look for a rainbow. The room is freezing now; you finally look around to notice brick wall and a tiled roof and, is that a snail on the floor? The chase makes you too weary, sleep has her way again.
-
You wake. She's counting the stars. Besides her, you curl and fall asleep again.
-
You wake, she sits and stares at you, wearing a silk shirt. She looks away, trying to hide her inquisitive eyes. As you to rub the sleep out of your own, finally she asks, "Leaving again?"

Sweat, love & salty sea water

Right beneath its' gorgeous blue belly is a dangerous part of the sea; a chilly place where the floor rapidly falls away, and the sky reels back with a vengeance. You could lose your life there, you just might die, but only the satellites will tell you that. If you confide in them, they'll tell you that the sea is not all calm and peace and fun and fishys. They'll tell you to beware, for the sea has been known to roar in the black of night; that the sea has a lover, an evil guy that few can stand and still fewer could like. But she loves him. And they'll tell you not to disturb them when busy, or basically never to get between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Breakfast Colours

Breakfast is not the same without her, most of all I miss her coffee cup. It was a deep brown, an allusion to her connection with the earth and the arts and all of humanity, in some strange way. It was grounded, and yet it was brittle; it was thin and delicate and well formed. It was her, there was so much of her in that cup. The way the coffee filled it, plentiful and deep with a bitter, sugar-less black; a tone that resonated against the milk white of her translucent face, the vermilion of her mature lips, the royal blue of those peeping veins, the fire tone of her wicked hair. She was a painting, the type that they put behind a protective glass with a sign that reads, 'Do Not Touch'. They should have warned me, too. In a foolish dream I thought the glass was to save the painting from dirty fingers like mine; I didn't realize it was to save naive fingers like mine from getting cut.

Portrait of a Chauvinist

He only chose the beautifully crazy psychotic types. They just seemed most delicious to him. But then, after they had broken up and one had slit a wrist, another had torched his house; he wondered why all the women in
the world were madly in love with him.

Portrait of a Baby

At the age of 15, his bones thickened and his lankiness fleshed out. You could see from his jaw and the curve of his back that he had become a man. He lost the shy smile, it had always been a faint reflection; his mother's benign adoration. Instead his light eyes shone dark with the glow of turgid stirrings from deep with his soul. Still all the life he lives, there's one thing he'll never lose.

The swiftness of thought, the grinding of gears upon gears and chains pulling trains of thought, rushing fast, falling headfirst, tumbling ladders, dodging snakes, running up through fields of mental mind games. He never resists it. It never stops.

But, the clogs, they work fast and the machine, it moves slow. And the train, it runs on but, never in the right direction. He still wants candy, far too often and far too much. And without it, he's a loss. All the books, all the logic, all the knowledge, all the money; all useless as worn inner-wear at a garage sale. All useless if he can't have candy. And too many times a day he's on his knees, "Please Lord, let me always have Candy!"

This was never intended to be so much like Joyce's 'Portrait of  an Artist...', I wasn't even thinking of it when I wrote his but when I read it back I suddenly felt like a plagiarist; he must be a bigger influence on me than I know. If you liked this, please 'like' it below. Read the rest of the blog here.