All posts tagged: dailyprompt

Shooting Stars

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You convinced me that the pebble in your palm was part of a star that had fallen from the heavens when you opened your mouth for the first time and screamed down the gods to demand an explanation of why you had to do this all again. I was too young to know what you meant when you called yourself an old soul. Reincarnation hadn’t been covered in school, the idea of living, dying, living, dying, living over and over held the same impact on my mind as when my mother tried to explain gravity by dropping household items from various heights onto the kitchen floor while telling me that it was an invisible force beneath my feet that kept me from floating off the planet. When I grew older I learnt that stars did not become pebbles and for a while I wondered if you’d meant to say it was a meteor, a little fragment of space debris you’d discovered by accident in a black pockmark upon your father’s perfect lawn. It took me …

Lost For Words

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I can feel the roots in my gut, knotting around my intestines while the branches creep upwards and my throat bobbles. Twigs stretch higher, almost to the back of my throat, while the words I wanted to say stick. Like half chewed bread on the roof of my mouth, no matter how my tongue toys with it, it won’t budge. I’m not sure if it’s even the right thing to say, or a thing you’ll want to hear. So I swallow past the thorns and say nothing instead.   Inspired by today’s Daily Prompt: Doubt

Apologies

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He kept his apologies in shoe boxes at the bottom of the wardrobe, where they stayed gathering dust until he’d pick a pair to wear out. Then he’d wear them until holes were worn through the soles and the fabric of them became crepe paper packing on unwanted gifts. They never matched his outfit, or suited the occasion, you could pick them out a mile off three shades too bright and a little too polished. I could never take him seriously when he came to my door wearing his best apologies and tried to explain to me how really, it was me who was wrong. Written For The Daily Prompt: Apology

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

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It’s like moving mountains. In the end I might manage, but I can’t put you back the same way you were before. There will always be gaps, and even filled with silver, or gold, they’re the evidence of scars I made on your skin and your bones. Too deep and clear for me to pretend they don’t exist and too new for you to forget them. Quick poem in response to Daily Prompt: Mountains

History Fandom

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I have always been a fan of history, right from when I was a small child. For those of you who read my posts regularly you’ll have noticed already the I have something of an obsession for the old and the half-forgotten. For this post I decided to combine my love of history with my love of scribbling. I don’t claim to have any great talent for drawing, but I do find it relaxing and really good fun. The first of the doodles above is taken from a 1337 French illustration. I’m assuming that it’s Philip VI of France but that might be wrong.  The original image doesn’t name the character but Philip VI fits with the time and provenance of the artwork. The original illustration depicts St Eligius pinching the devil’s nose, a story from the First Crusade. Image number two is a doodle of a Norman helmet. It’s a little more ornate that the traditional image of a Norman helmet but I quite liked the extra challenge the detail added to the piece …

Strangers At The Breakfast Bar

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Unexpected? No I don’t supposed they were unexpected as such, we had forewarning after all just not very much. The blue beetle with orange stripes parked diagonally across the neighbours precious, three cm cut lawn was a sort-of hint, but we weren’t certain until we walked in and saw them with my mother’s Victoria sponge half-way gone between them. She called him Sue and he called her Samuel. The other half asked them if perhaps they’d got themselves a little muddled, as if that was all an appropriate thing to ask guests when they’re sat at your kitchen table. I apologised and offered to put the kettle on. ‘Coffee? Tea?’ I asked. Sue looked at me, eyes going up and down as a slow grin spread across his face. ‘Yeah love, sure thing.’ I caught sight of Samuel’s manicured hand swatting out at him, her hushed hissed telling him not to embarrass the host. ‘Remember the last place,’ she said. ‘Let’s not have that again.’ ‘The last place?’ My other half looked for the couple, …

Cupid’s Arrow

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You and I? We converse in insults in ‘fuck offs’ and ‘get losts’ some sentences only half formed, half thought punctuated with half-hearted shift! Move it! shoves. You and I know each other better everyday. Miss Grumpy Pants and the prat. I know your flaws are no worse than mine. We’re eccentric, weird, strange and nothing about us makes it easy living with someone else. We’d destroy any other lover. You and I work. Really dam well. So next time I’m snarking, your barking and we’re sulking, remember you’re the only one I can bother to stay mad at all night. In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Cupid’s Arrow.”

Line Please

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Connect the Dots.” I do not know why it is called “Golden” since it appears to have been written by men with mouths of iron and hearts of lead. This is Diarmaid MacCulloch quoting ‘De causis corruptarum artium’. That’s what happens when you ask someone to pick up the nearest books and they’re half way through researching the 1549 South West Rebellion in England. I suppose it’s rather pretty but I’ve no idea how I’m supposed to use it to write a post. I’ll try again, Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys: … Trust me to pick up a book where page eighty-two is completely blank. Well, one last attempt. Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant The Faceless Ones: She wasn’t, in Valkyrie’s opinion, all there.” Ah, Valkyrie Cain, one of my all time favourite characters by one of my all time favourite authors talking about another character that I simply adore. Clarabelle. Clarabelle is the definition of “away with the fairies”, but she is one of the sweetest, most accepting …

Not Long After Your Birth

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Do not ask me how I got there, car I suppose and most likely with Dad since I can remember him leading towards the smell of hospital, across disinfected floors, between bits of blurred memory.   This was where you were. The new thing, the small thing, the ‘cried when the nurse came’ thing.   I looked at you, for a bit. Then mum gave me chocolate left-hand side, white cabinet between you and her. Purple packet, two hand grip, probably smaller than I remember. Sizes change over seventeen years.

Dangerous Sleeper

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Have you ever elbowed someone in the throat while you slept? In my defence, I was aiming to elbow an extremely, infuriating housemate in the ribs, it just so happened that I was dreaming and my boyfriend rolled over to see what I was mutter about. (I talk in my sleep.) Hence elbow in the throat and a very, surreal wakeup. I can’t even claim that this was a one time affair. Both my boyfriend and I are quite active sleepers, rolling over, shifting about and blurting out random comments while we sleep. I wake up to find he’s rolled over and pinned me in my sleep, the other night I got kneed in the but and he’s always informing me of the various punches and elbows that I supposedly sent his way as I tossed and turned in the night. (Somehow sliding half-way down the bed is also a common occurrence with me. It really confuses him.) I’m not sure what I chatter on about in my sleep, but I’ll leave you with a …