(Daily Prompt: Broken)
Broken. That’s how you left me.
Breaking. That’s what you’re doing to me now since you’ve come back, driving me to brokenness once more.
Broken. Chains that bound me to “worthless,” “useless,” “stupid,” “aggravating,” and “not good enough.”
Breaking. Trust, peace of mind…our bond.
Broken.
But not shattered.
I will always rise again.
Simon and Garfunkel
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by
The flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
(100 word challenge)
A yellow rose falls to the ground and delicate petals scatter.
I know you can hear me. I know you can see me. I know with each passing day that you are walling yourself in a distant house on a hill, and you are drawing the heavy drapes closed.
I wait at the iron gate. It’s crowded thick with overgrown rose bushes that have been ignored far too long.
A thorn catches my t-shirt and blood is drawn. I cannot cry; the silence and indifference will become crushing.
We used to live together. But now you have shut. me. out.
(Daily Prompt: Disappear / 100 word challenge)
She wanted to disappear, to just evaporate on the spot. His words reduced her to nothing and cut her down when she came to him with everything.
But she knows herself, possesses that knowledge, and knows that the love she gives is not a desperate request for more, but rather a deposit made to him from her wealth.
The rejection hurts as much as it did the first time. She knew the risk when he came back.
But she believed then, as much as she believes now, in a man capable of love.
This unwavering belief will not disappear.
.
.
Yet.
Leona Lewis
I don’t care what they say
I’m in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don’t know the truth
My heart’s crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Jewel
Well in case you failed to notice,
In case you failed to see,
This is my heart bleeding before you,
This is me down on my knees, and…
These foolish games are tearing me apart,
And your thoughtless words are breaking my heart.
You’re breaking my heart.
(Daily Prompt: Narcissism / 100 word challenge)
She wept.
He kept to himself and only engaged in the niceties of life, but nothing more than that. He locked her out of his interior life. She’d been softly knocking at the door for years.
Yet again, he threw back the door and cut her down with indifferent criticism. He’s right, she thought. I don’t know who he is.
Out on the deck she took her medication. She drank a glass of wine and reflected on the surf, the setting sun, her fifth glass of wine. Narcissism. It was her fault.
It was all shutting down now.
She slept.
(Daily Prompt: Complication / 100 word challenge)
James took his last breath while holding Emily’s hand. She never left his side, not even to notify family. That last precious intimacy belonged to them alone.
There was just one complication. Pain cinched tightly around her chest. She collapsed on his arm, still gripping his hand.
At their celebration of life, family shared anecdotes and read aged love letters their parents had written.
While on the other side of the lake, there was also laughter disguised by rustling leaves. The sun created a brilliant mirage: James and Emily on a blanket, sharing a picnic. There were no complications now.
(100 word challenge)
“Well, shit.”
He’d forgotten Allison’s birthday again.
She joined him on the deck and handed him a fluted glass of champagne. They toasted.
“How could I forget?”
She laughed. “You always do. You’re just so busy paying attention to everything else that matters. There are no strikes against you, Rick.”
He kissed her. “I’m so glad you’re not the type that would pitch a fit.”
“I used to. Remember? We’ve both changed. We’re not who we were when we met.”
Once, that had pained him. He thought they had lost everything between them.
But love always remained.
(Excerpt)
“What do you want in this marriage?”
The question came from an unassuming therapist with a kind smile. It was always difficult in the beginning, especially when you had to consciously make an effort to be vulnerable. Her husband would not do that. But, she was willing to step off the ledge into the abyss and be transformed in her self and in her life.
“I want to talk with him. I want to ask how he rates this marriage, what he feels and thinks about it. I want to know what he sees as weaknesses and strengths. I want to work out resolutions with him. I want him to put his arm around me again, to be in our marriage with me in a together sense.
“But I don’t want to hear how we don’t work, don’t fit, don’t match, don’t share all the same interests and that there are no ways to resolve our differences.
“We came together as soul mates. We’re soul mates still, but not in the same way. The stakes are higher. It’s more than dating and sharing interests. We’ve been through the hottest part of hell and we might be hanging from a twig on a cliff in that hell pit, but we’re moving forward. We share a history. We’re family. We weren’t that when we first started out. All we had was shared interests and attraction. That doesn’t last when the going gets tough. Our going got real tough and we are here together despite it. Our connection is stronger, if we don’t throw it away.”
(100 word challenge)
Every time he snapped at her, or mimicked her as if she were an imbecile, or spoke to her with malicious contempt, she quickly slit his throat…in her mind.
Once, while driving, she indulged in a glance at his exposed throat while he slept. I couldn’t! She could never live with herself; could never be separated from her children; could not throw away the possibility of welcoming grandchildren into the world.
The feelings dulled in time, but remained her defense against a lover living in a hell that had metastasized and nearly consumed him completely. It would not consume her.
Lisa Barker 