Demotic

It's a popular thing, for me, to feel bad about the things you say and feel. We're so different sometimes, even though I can see the benefits in that. I'm better now than I used to be, in regards to what our problem usually was. But there are new ones everyday, if I go looking for them. So I have to remember not to, because they're not real.

(That's why love is blind.)

Altruism

This is how you get the best of me, she said. It's really not so hard, you see. Because I'll do anything for you, and I won't ask for a thing in return.

Verboten

The children crept down the dark hall together, close enough but too proud to hold hands. Their heads took on a strange glow from the lamp lights along the walls. Like three angels processing straight to the mouth of hell, they moved toward the giant wooden doors.

Suddenly an older boy leapt into their path from a passage unseen. The children screamed but didn't run, a tribute to their bravery.

"Where are you three troublemakers going?" the older boy asked.

"Nowhere you'd want to be," his little brother answered hotly.

The older boy glared. "You know this hallway is forbidden."

"Then what are you doing here?" the girl inquired.

The older boy turned red. "If you don't leave this instant, I will report you."

The three children looked at each other, then up at the boy. "Okay," they said in unison.

Paralyzed by anger and fear, the older boy could do no more than watch them walk away. Finally he slinked back into whatever hidden passage he had come from, living that they had called his bluff. He couldn't report their trespass without revealing his own, so for now their secret was safe. But not forever.

Ineffable

You're not allowed to say that. To undermine my memories, to rend my heart in two. My love for them... and also for you... Ineffable. Indispensible. Inevitable.

Bombast

I put those words in his mouth. The ones that make your mouth water, that make you change your mind -- and your vote. That man is a brainless, heartless puppet, but because of me, you love him.

That's why I quit.

Everything.

Sententious

Lessons to learn. I find them all around me, hanging in the air like hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Some I take in, some I breathe out. This is how I live.

Do you really know it all already?


Well, well, what do I say
I've never seen a bad day look quite this way
And well, well, what do I do
When all of my thoughts run right back to you

Kibosh

Nights like these are a train wreck, and we just don't know how to stop. You can say it's me, and that you're sorry I don't understand, but that's not being sorry at all. You don't have to ask me to think about it, to reevaluate my words and actions and position, because you already know that's all I do. But I have no idea what's going through your head, and that's why I can't let it go.

Expeditious

She hurries along the brook, past where the Earth turns to fire, and around the tallest mountain giant. She follows every instruction to the letter, hoping the great spirits will follow.

At the place of a thousand snakes, she sees it. The magic knotted root, the medicine her father needs to live. She has flown here, her feet winged by love and fear, but now she needs a real set of wings to finish the job. How will she cross these treacherous beasts?

Your strength will shield you, the shaman had assured her. She glanced at the fangs and glowing red eyes and found herself unable to agree. As one snake crept closer, she rushed backward, bumping into a tree, and knocking her flute to the ground.

She stared at it. Her strength? She was the best musician in her village. Could that...

She snatched the flute just before the snake could wrap his body around it. Without thinking, she began to play the first song her father had ever taught her, a war ballad about one of their ancestors. The snakes all turned to face her, and for a moment she thought she had erred, but soon their heads began to drift lazily toward the forest floor.

When they were all lulled to sleep, she stepped carefully between them toward the root. With one hand still holding her instrument, she pulled the knotted plant off its tree trunk pedestal and slipped it into the pouch slung around her waist. Then she tiptoed once more through the snakes, forcing herself to focus not on their scaly bodies but on the empty patches between them.

She kept playing well after she had escaped their den. Finally, when she felt safe enough to put away the flute, she paused to catch her breath. After a few minutes braced against a boulder, she put away her instrument and adjusted her pouch. Then she ran faster than the wind to save her father.

Cocooning

One day, man got tired of puberty. Why not get it all over with at once, we thought? Why suffer through that painful and awkward stage, all those agonizing years?

Scientists studied the growth patterns of all of Nature's other creatures, and ultimately they settled upon the butterfly. Men, they said, would now cocoon.


Hmm, I think I might try to develop this into a longer story idea...

Iconoclast

She whispers to the night sky that she doesn't believe. He can't really be gone. For ten long years she waited, and now the saga has come to an end.

She returns to the shrine, where candlelight flickers over the face of her heroes. Her heroes who left her here alone, abandoned her to reality, to a world often low on love and imagination.

With one vicious sweep she knocks the whole shrine to the floor. And with tears in her eyes she whispers to the shards and shattered pieces, "I don't believe. He can't be really gone."

Waterloo

Did you forget? Somewhere along the way, did you lose sight of how amazing I am? Did all of my good deeds and good words and good love somehow fall to the side, unnoticed, unappreciated? What made you think that was okay, to treat me that way? To discard me once you were done? What excuse did you make up for yourself to justify all the pain you caused, all the tears and all the insecurities?

I almost let you ruin me. Thank god my mother taught me to be stronger than that.

Binary

Sometimes we seem to be caught in this binary state: fine, or not. People only see what they expect, so how can I change my mind? You could do it for me, but you won't. You insist on a strength that I try to save for other things. You don't understand when I falter.

Perseverate

These days pass one into another, and I wonder when I'll notice. I wonder when it will cease to be the dream come true and start to be reality. I hope for never, but never never is. I hope to cheat the predictions and the statistics. I've never been one for numbers; instead I opt for dreams and words and scenes that play out just the way I want them to. But this isn't my story. It's my life.

Froward

Backward, froward, it's all the same. He's trouble. He doesn't know how to make good choices. If you offer him gold today or water forever, he'll forget he's ever been thirsty. He'll forget what he needs to survive.

What do you do with a man--no, a child--like that? Tell me, please, what to do.

Ailurophile

You're a dog person, she says hopelessly. And I'm a cat person. You like spicy foods, and I don't eat meat. You hate flying, and I get carsick. You watch horror movies, and I read romance novels. We're as different as two people can be.

He watched her pace the room. And he resisted the urge -- barely -- to stop her, hold her.

Instead all he did was ask, So?

She stared at him. And she found that she didn't have an answer.

Flexuous

There is a hidden footpath at the base of the mountain. If you follow its winding, serpentine trail, you will arrive half of the way up. You can look out over the land and feel accomplished, for you have climbed very high, and there are many people below.

You can also look up. You will see the mountain's peak, where a precious few have managed to find perch. You will want to join them, and you will wonder how they got there. You will scan the area around you, but you will find that yes, this is the end of that footpath.

You might call up to the men at the top. Some will not be able to hear you, or will pretend not to. You can shout until your voice goes hoarse. Finally, one person, out of irritation or pity or sympathy, will reply.

"How did you get up there?" you will ask. "The footpath ends down here."

He will laugh. "So make your own."

Crackerjack

Aspirations. Dreams. There's a difference, he says. One group is achievable. The other is like heaven: you'll never really know, no matter how hard you try in this life.

She wonders if he knew already, even then, what he would become.

She watches him from afar now, and she smiles. She knew him when. Maybe he doesn't remember, but she does.

As the people clamor around him, she laughs and thinks about how shy he used to be. She recalls trying to force him out of his shell that first time, and she puts her fingers to her lips. At that moment, he does too. And she freezes.

Maybe he does remember after all. Maybe they're still connected.

Vaticination

She knocks three times because she knows that she doesn't have any control, but just maybe she can make a difference.

Congruous

Two flowers float down a river. They are journeying together, but they are separate. One posey, one tulip; they are not related. But they are drawn to each other by the little currents of the stream. Sometimes they touch, stick. Sometimes they are thrown apart. Where will they end up? Naturally, wherever the river flows. Together? Who knows.

Southpaw

He was dirty from the game, but he liked it that way. Nothing felt better than being out there, in the center of all that energy and light and talent, and knowing that you could make or break the game.

It hadn't always been this way. The power, the fame, the name. He'd been somebody else once, still dirty, but in a different way. From a different game.

He didn't talk about it. Not because he was ashamed, but because it was over. That was how his mother had taught him: put away your things when you're done with them. And he was done with those things. He was here now, and this was the only thing that mattered.

"Strike three! Yer out!"

Another victory.

Disparage

If we go there, we can never come back.

Pristine

There was a time when we were pristine. You hadn't touched me -- only wanted to -- and I had never said an unkind word.

I stir the leaves in my tea, staring fiercely at the pale brown liquid, imagining your eyes. The steam wafts slowly with the breeze, floating lazily over to the other side of the table, where you are competently ignoring me. I pretend it doesn't hurt, but I've put on my yellow dress, the one you used to like so much. It pinches under my arms now, so yes, it does hurt. I wore it for you, because you used to like it so much. Today you don't even notice.

Campanologist

He was a monster to most, but she loved him fiercely. He didn't know it, and maybe she didn't either. But love was the tie, the bond that kept bringing her back.

She walked from school to the tower every day, at precisely the same time, the right time, waiting to hear the bells. After the sweet peal that signaled evening, he would meet her in the gardens with a book and a piece of caramel. She knew he stole the candy, but she never mentioned it.

Once he'd been late, and when she asked why, he punched the tower's stone wall. It was the only time he'd shown her personally what his true nature looked like. She ignored it and tore a strip of cloth from her skirt to bandage his bloodied fist.

Years later she would wonder what had happened to him. When her husband found the cloth, with its faded brown stain, she merely shrugged. "Woman troubles," was her excuse. And in a way, it was the truth.

Recusant

The culprit could have been anyone, but Mrs. Regens was sure it was the boy. He was proud and defiant on a daily basis, and his family was full of delinquents. She would know; she had taught almost all of them.

She had seen the boy steal lunch money from kids when they weren't looking, but she'd also watched him protect those same kids from bullies. He never took from someone who couldn't afford to lose it, and he always gave back.

So when the principal asked the faculty if they knew who had swiped the brand new sneakers from Edward Collins' cubby, Mrs. Regens kept her suspicions to herself. She'd never been able to get through to the boy's father, uncle, or cousins, but for him, this boy, she still had hope.

Kowtow

These are the pieces when I fall to days. We break until we bend, and then we kowtow to my tears. I don't apologize how to know enough, so I sleep myself to cry. Is backwards what it feels like to be this, to hurt so much it needs?

Mythomania

Is that what you think of me?

Trepid

You said they couldn't hurt us. In fact, you promised they wouldn't even come close enough to touch. But they have. They have hurt and touched and cut and clawed. They have spit and name-called. They have inspired so much fear that we will not be coming back. We will leave, we will find a new place, and we will prosper. And we will have to decide whether or not to trust you again.

Hale

Hearty portions of meat. Large bowls of vegetables and bread. Pies and ice cream lie in wait for dessert. The kitchen has become the heart.

Where do I belong? Two families, one body. One child. Many desires, many conflicts.

This will not be easy, because nothing ever is. This will not be pretty, because difficult never is.

Amalgamate

Merge into a single body, sing it sweet and taste it low. Carry forth like froth on a wave. Wait for a full moon. This is the way I dream sometimes, this is the sea I smell.

Numen

Spirits haunt me. They leave me lying awake at night, eyes wide open, wrestling with my emotions. Love, guilt, loyalty, hope, longing. There isn't a balance or a place to go, hide, escape. There is only your breath, stifling mine, and my soul waiting for me to rise.

Putrid

There is a putrid smell coming from the past. There are violent beams of nostalgia assaulting these weary dreams. We hop for less to become more. We wait for the whore to change her ways. We never understand the folds of the skirt as they billow in the wind. Patience can be infinite, but goodness doesn't seem to be.

Exegesis

I can give you a long and detailed explanation of everything that's in my head, but if you can't look into my eyes and see my heart, the words won't mean a thing.

Gainsay

The stars rose overhead in a formation that foretold disaster. Lucy's smile said she didn't care. She rode her bike to the edge of the lake and waited for the fairy to come.

Lucy sat there for hours, shivering in the cool night air. She huddled between two shrubs for a while to protect to herself from the wind, but then she worried the fairy wouldn't see her, and she forced herself to bear the chill again.

When the fairy finally did show up, she was covered in blood and her wings were in tatters. Lucy cradled the poor injured creature in the palm of her hands, and with large teary eyes asked what happened.

"I'm going to leave you tonight." The fairy struggled with every word. "But I want you to remember what I taught you. Don't ever let this world change your mind."

Lucy nodded and cried and carried the fairy to the lake. Wistfully she lay the fairy on a large palm leaf and let her float away. She watched until she couldn't see her friend anymore.

This world wouldn't change her mind, but it couldn't satisfy her heart.