Not an echo

By R.E. Musekamp

Her heartbeat is an echo
echo in the hollow of my palm.
It fills tiny cracks
tracks where sweat
and smoke moved, moved—
I can feel her move.

Her pulse is:
a crumbling tower
a dust castle
a dry city
a fallen home.

Walk the streets of her arteries—
can you feel the echo
echo of her heartbeat
thrum thrum & pap pap?
Maybe it’s all in my own head.

I think I’m fading out, not in, & I think
I’m losing even the echo
echo.
Because now her pulse is empty,
so empty, & I’m alone in the dust,
ash.

Poseidon’s Daughter

Poseidon’s Daughter by c-l-a-i-r (for the prompt “The most powerful manipulators: those who choose to appear helpless and inept. The ones who fall into their traps: those with a need to save.”)

            The glimmer of moon cascaded in fractured tilts through the Laurent household, eerie and hollowed-out with the pregnant darkness of a summer’s night. I glided up the basement stairs, escaping the braying void of an aging party about to snuff itself out with the next drink.

            Here, away from the turbulent fervor of drunken brotherhood, the cool beige carpet and turquoise décor were a tranquil tide swilling my thoughts into an indiscernible whirlpool, until I simply stood staring, in the middle of my best friend’s living room, out the kitchen’s far bay window and into a silky covering of navy nighttime.

            So entrenched in mindless, empty concentration, I never heard the fairy-light footsteps of the youngest Laurent, Nérine. At fourteen, she was only a head shorter than I, with a pearlescent smile and elfin ears, a quiet knowingness written in the contours of her face despite its youthful innocence, as pure as a freshly-powdered baby.

            The swish of her soft cotton gown choked the air from my lips under the sweet guise of guilelessness, and I turned round to face her. Nérine produced a close-lipped smile, blue eyes like luminous moonstones in the dark, brow half-furrowed.

            “Nérine,” I breathed, afraid of it being anything louder than a furtive whisper on my lips. “Sorry. Did the party wake you?”

            She nodded, taupe head bobbing, loose strands of straight hair swaying, chin like a charming puppet.

            “I’m sorry,” I murmured again. “Let me walk you back to bed. I’ll tell them to keep it down.”

            Her gentle fingertips made their way airily, effortlessly, to mine, and she led me up the twirling, white-banistered staircase, the ends of her hair slinking breezily against the small of her back.

            We slid, it seemed, so slowly across the long, regal hallway and to the door of her bedroom, though perhaps my own slight intoxication was to blame. I stood grounded, sturdy, feet planted just before the doorway – and yet her fingers, still laced like ribbon with mine, refused to untie themselves.

            “Um, goodnight, Nérine; I’ll go tell your brother he needs to tone it down, now.” But the worry biting at her brow told me otherwise.

            “Please stay until they leave, Jack,” she whimpered. “You know Phoenix’s friends always end up crashing in here and sleeping right on top of me.” I sighed, able to recall such occasions with ease, and let myself be led deeper into the cavern of the girl’s room to the pristine, throne-like white bed, covers fluffed high as my waist.

            Never letting go her grip on my hand, Nérine shimmied like a white kitten under the snow-covering of blanket, curling up in a soft ball and feebly tugging until my full weight fell beside her.

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-by lifeisbetterpurple

It would be so nice to swim. 

I want to drive on a six-lane highway with the windows down.  I want to feel the sticky heat of summer on my neck and back, to let it sit and simmer until a breeze lifts— I feel so much cooler this way.  I’ll take an exit with an unfamiliar name and drive and drive, through strip malls and gas stations, past antique shops with men smoking out front, men older than the furniture inside.  Past abandoned store fronts and diners that long broke their promise to make the Best Shake In Town.  I’ll leave all of it and get on a dusty road, kicking up red clouds of dirt as I drive, and I’ll follow this road until buildings turn into trees turn into sand. 

And then I’ll walk across boardwalks and dunes until shells cut the soles of my flat feet and the sun’s beating is too relentless to bear. Only then will I hear the water’s siren song, the sweet lapping of waves against the shore.  I’ll go cautiously, tiptoeing on wet sand, scrunching it between my toes as the first waves kiss my ankles and bury my feet.  And I’ll think I’m perfectly content right there, but something will push from behind.  I’ll feel the shove that makes me stumble deeper and deeper in, coercing with the same rhythmic pull of the tides. 

I’m completely submerged and I kick and fight, but the water won’t let go.  It takes over every sense: my eyes burn, I taste only salt on my tongue and in my throat and hear only waves thrashing in sync with the rush of blood in my head.  As waves punch me in the gut and pull me by the hair and make me fall to me knees, I know I am no longer in control.  The water has won, and I should feel helpless. But instead I feel free. 

I let the current take me where it will until I am surrounded by blue-grey, until the distinction between sky and earth is lost and every drop glitters under the sun.  Then I dive, headfirst and eyes wide open.  Every worry thought dream fear memory I ever had rises to the surface, where it evaporates into salty air.   I am no longer human.  I belong to the water, where I can swim.  

“Singularity”

by Reginald Espiritu

Every Thursday, at 12:30 P.M., Cassie and Jordan have coffee together at the Dada Café. They meet here, at the corner of 23rd and Portland, as Cassie leaves their apartment to go to work and Jordan heads back from campus. Because of the mild springtime weather, they have only had to sit inside once this semester. That instance was the only time in which Cassie ordered tea, and she drank it with soy milk.

Today she drinks her usual water; fortified, as she likes it, with vitamins and electrolytes. Jordan prefers coffee, but, like Cassie, he does not have it plain. Gazing down at the table, he tears open a sugar packet. Across from him, Cassie gazes down at her smartphone, sitting with her legs crossed. She wears a neon green tank. Jordan wanted to wear his neon green tank today, but he settled for red.

“Jacob and Lauren broke up,” Cassie says. Jordan removes the lid from his coffee cup and pours in the sugar.

“About time,” he replies. He tears open another sugar packet. “She’s cheated on him at every party. With Chris Lee, mostly.”

Cassie scrolls through her phone. With her free hand she takes a sip from her water.

“No,” says Cassie. “Loren Bacall cheats with Chris Lee. I’m talking about Lauren Flanagan.”

Jordan sips from his coffee and then takes the lid back off.

“I know. Chris Lee does have a thing with Loren Bacall, but he and Lauren Flanagan hook up, too.” Jordan empties another sugar packet into his coffee. “They hooked up at the Groundhog’s Day Rager.”

Cassie frowns, still looking downwards.

“No, that was Chris Li. Like, ‘L-I’ Li.”

Jordan sips from his coffee again. He frowns.

“Lauren Flanagan has auburn hair, right?”

Cassie stops scrolling. She looks up to think.

“No. She has chestnut hair.”

Jordan pauses before tearing open the next sugar packet.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he nods, before pouring in the sugar. “So she and Jacob broke up?”

“Yeah, just last Thursday. She broke up with him.”

Jordan places the lid back on his coffee, unfazed by the fact.

“She said he’s devastated,” Cassie continues. After taking a sip, Jordan shakes his head.

“He’s not. He was in Santa Barbara the next day. At UCSB, until Sunday.”

Cassie transfers her gaze up toward Jordan. In her sunglasses, Jordan can see his reflection. His reflection pours sugar into the coffee cup. Cassie smiles.

“Adam would do that,” she comments. Jordan shrugs and smiles back.

“Yeah, he came back yesterday. He said the girls there are at least 8’s.”

Cassie shakes her head.

“Whatever! More like 5’s.”

Jordan shrugs.

“He said he was drunk as a bum all weekend.”

Cassie raises an eyebrow.

“Then, yeah! Of course they’re gonna look like 8’s.”

Jordan leans back in his chair.

“What about Lauren? She’s an 8, maybe a 9. She got with Jacob.”

Cassie puts her phone down on the table. She crosses her arms.

“Lauren only got serious with Jake because last semester they had sociology together. He had the answers to the final.”

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New Youth

New Youth

We, the youth! The tethered youth!
All of us born artists, 
All the radiant children who burned super bright,
I too have petered, been washed out and turned dull.

We, the youth! The foraging youth!
Fortune favors the brave,
Us venturing out for the unknown, us veering off for the less traveled road, 
In search of the beat that beats for us so we can dance to it.
 
We, the youth! The inspired youth!
Roused by the hands of now,
We progress erecting new lives, adventurous lives,
Genuine and vibrant and original in the fullness of its meaning.  

We, the youth! The unbending youth!
Dear elders, 
It is not that we love success less, but that we love respect more. 
It is not that we love money less, but that we love time more.

We, the youth! The new youth! 
So proud to be alive,
Proud to trudge through the commotion and the doubt and the decision,      
Proud to embrace the failures with the triumphs, it is a journey we are after.

- O Hughes

The Conquerer

Author: springsorrowandwinterlight

She conquered me. When I saw her picking sunflowers from the golden-green fields, I thought she was mine. But she beat me and took me for her own.

I swooped down, the storm of storms, surrounded her in my shadow, the air around her turned to blue fog and the sunflowers disappeared, the sun with them. I roared, spitting silver flames licking the edge of her billowing skirt, and the glow of my eyes lit her face. She did not blink, she did not falter. She smirked, swayed back and then forward, her angel face close to my teeth. I started. She moved her feet, holding the edge of her skirt, twisting and turning and wrapping the fog around her. She moved me with her, forcing me into a lover’s dance, and then she pirouetted and clasped my face in her hands. She closed her eyes, laughed like a pealing bell and she planted a kiss on my mouth. I remembered the boy I had been before, and with that she owned me. 

She sent me flying to chase easier prey, but called me back oft when she fancied some shade. She danced with me again, leading the spins and twists around that field. Even when she grew old and I stayed ageless and free, her playful smile took me for a prisoner.

Week 53 | Prompt

What is the loneliest situation that you can imagine?

Submitted by rhineriver

Aurulent

by Queen of Zombies

gold-flecked kisses
from a boy i called God
i am the tempest in his teapot
he is the mountain for my trumpet
calling out over the horizon
crying “fool, fool, fool.”