Lisa Barker

(Daily Prompt: Confidant / 100 word challenge)

My confidant is in a rut called, “Why should I care?”

Nothing needs to be solved. I just want him to listen and acknowledge me.

“Offer me a cold drink,” I said. “Say something nice.”

I told him it’s what best friends do.

I want to invite him into my world, share myself with him, the trivial and the stellar.

Marriage in our forties has been rough.  But I can envision us soaring from this point on. He doesn’t want me to.  We circle the runway because we might crash.

He’s afraid of it all coming to an end again.

Stay

Lisa Loeb

You say
I only hear what I want to
You say
I talk so all the time
So

And I thought what I felt was simple
And I thought that I don’t belong
And now that I am leavin’
Now I know that I did somethin’ wrong ’cause I missed you
Yeah, yeah I missed you

And you say
I only hear what I want to, I don’t listen hard
Don’t pay attention to the distance that you’re runnin’
To anyone, anywhere, I
Don’t understand if you really care, I’m only hearing negative
No, no, no (bad)

So I, I turn the radio on, I turn the radio up
And this woman was singin’ my song
Lovers in love and the others run away
Lover is crying ’cause the other won’t stay
Some of us hover while we’re waiting for the other who was dyin’ since the day they were born, well
Well, this is not that, think that I’m throwin’ but I’m thrown

And I thought I’d live forever
But now I’m not so sure
You try to tell me that I’m clever
That won’t take me anyhow
Or anywhere
With you

You said that I was naive, and (naive…)
I thought that I was strong, oh
I thought, “hey, I can leave, I can leave”, oh (leave…)
But now I know that I was wrong, ’cause I missed you
Yeah… I miss you

You said, “You caught me ’cause you want me” and one day you let me go
You try to keep away a keeper or keep me ’cause you know you’re just so
Scared to lose

And you say
“Stay”

You say
I only hear what I want to

(100 word challenge)

I miss you.   I’m hurting and I can hardly breathe.  You hurt, you’re broken, I accept you with all my heart.  But you act as if you don’t love me, don’t want me, can’t stand me. You hold our son above my head.  I cannot leave him to face these things without me. Alone.

You can’t make a commitment to me … in case It happens again.  But It is! Windows between us are closing. You are going to find yourself lonely until another love comes to lift you up and save you.

And, in time, It will happen again.

(100 word challenge)

It was a fight for the ages, a fight to be all they once were.

“There’s nothing about you that I’m attracted to,” he said.

She cried. “What am I supposed to do with that? You shut me out at every turn and shut this relationship down.”

“You’ve changed.”

“You never say how.”

Then, he said, “It’s not you it’s me.”

She exploded. “You’re hiding and when you’re not, you’re lashing out. You’ve been angry for seven years!”

Arms folded he refused to look at her. “You don’t know me.”

“I only know what you share with me.”

(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.

The Sound of Silence

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.