oneword entries 2010

[prismaticbleed]

 

rejection

"This isn't what we're looking for," as the paper slid back across the table.
The shadow of a hand covered my face. Cold. Didn't you want to see me? After the countless hours you spent with your eyes fixed on mine, couldn't you bear to look at me?
If I'm not what you were looking for, if I truly have no use, what will become of me?
Was I born only to die?
Was I created only to be rejected?

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paperclips

I held the tiny, twisted metal shape between my fingers.
One paper clip. That’s all it took to hold my life together.
My hands moved to pick up a stack of papers, drowning in letters and punctuation, overflowing with ideas and thoughts. Ten years of writing. Ten years of purpose.
I slipped the paper clip over the left corner and smiled.
Funny how the things we take for granted are often the things we need the most.


“Look at them,” I implored, holding my hands up to him. Colors fell from my fingers. Red, yellow, white, green. “Look at how many there are.”
He smiled at me, intrigued and amused, as I scrambled to collect the ones I had dropped. “Sure, but why do you need so many paper clips?”
I grinned in reply as I turned back to my work. “I ran out of staples.”

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alter

I stood in silence, taken by surprise. He had stopped speaking mid-sentence, and was now gazing blindly at the pavement. Was he feeling sick?
“Hey, what’s up? Can you hear me?” I asked, waving a hand before his glassy eyes. No response. I sighed, shifting on my feet indecisively, and tried again. “Listen, I just want to help. What’s going on? Are you feeling okay?”
The man’s head snapped back up then, a grin bursting onto the grey countenance like a silent gunshot. I flinched.
“Okay? I’m just peachy,” a voice quite unlike his laughed, shaking hands reaching up to run through matted brown hair. “Just fuckin’ peachy.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I took a step back. This is not okay after all, I thought, feeling my nerves tense and sting. This is not okay at all. I was speaking to an alter.
The stranger’s grin had not faded. The air was thick with gunpowder.

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obvious

“You should have realized it by now,” the violet-eyed specter sighed from across the room. “It’s obvious that she’s only trying to harm you. I don’t care how well she tries to hide her real motives. You should have realized it by now, for the love of God!”
I said nothing, my arms wrapped tightly across my aching ribs. I was miserable for the third day in a row and it was all because I was far too naive. Second chances lose their light when they are given to devils, I mused as another dagger of pain sliced through my chest. Why do I never learn?

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mythology

As a child, my head was full of dragons and unicorns, old gods and old magic, knights and wizards and immortal heroes. I was fascinated by mythology: the stories laced their fingers through the spaces in reality and molded them into a gilded fascination. Then I grew older, and legends were swallowed up by logic, science and hard facts pervading the corners of my mind where the phoenixes hid.
Have we destroyed that old world? Are the minds of children its only hope?

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lucky

You’re so lucky, my mother has always told me. You’ve always been lucky. But is there really any such thing as luck? Are there any real coincidences? Or is it all fate, some invisible plan, the myriad blessings all lining up to serve a greater purpose? No, I say; I am not a lucky man. I am something more.

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tarnished

The hot water jets were at full blast, my aching fingers thrust into the boiling stream. I cringed at the futility of it all, reflexively drawing back as the pain seared through my bones once more. What did I hope to burn away? What did I hope to erase? I could scrub this skin until it bled. I could slice clean through to the bone. I could cauterize every nerve this cursed form possessed, and it would still fail to remove the stains. My very soul was tarnished, I thought, biting my lip against the pain. Still, I could at least hope. I turned off the water and picked up the knife.

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wishing

Wishing, hoping, praying… it was all I could remember doing. How long had I been fighting this harsh reality? I stared in the mirror, coldly observing my stolen body, as I did every night. It was not mine; it had never been mine, and I despised every inch of it. Even now my consciousness burned at the awareness of these loathsome bones. There would be no shooting stars tonight, I thought bitterly.