If you would like to submit a drabble (a short work of game-related fiction exactly 100 words), please @mail Queens with your submission, the title, the name you would like it to appear under and which category you feel it belongs best in.
Challenge Drabble for October 2018's the topic is Books.
316 String Theory drabbles written — and counting.
Categories
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Love and Relationships (108)
Miscellaneous (4)
New York City (6)
The Resistance (14)
Authors
Abby (19)
Adel (2)
Anonymous (14)
Asi (1)
Astor (1)
Audrey (2)
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Barbara (1)
Bao-Wei (3)
Bella (3)
Benji (3)
Bolivar (1)
Cardinal (2)
Calvin (3)
Cash (1)
Claire (2)
Colette (4)
Cooper (2)
Corbin (3)
Dajan (1)
Danko (2)
Daphne (4)
Deckard (6)
Delia (2)
Delilah (21)
Eileen (15)
Elisabeth (2)
Emily (1)
Evan (1)
Faye (1)
Francois (7)
Gabriel (3)
Gillian (12)
Hannah (2)
Helena (6)
Howard (2)
Huruma (9)
Ingrid (2)
Iris (1)
Jane (1)
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JJ (2)
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Joseph (3)
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Kaylee (21)
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Logan (4)
Lynette (3)
Magnes (1)
McRae (1)
Melissa (32)
Meredith (1)
Monica (1)
Murdoch (1)
Nadira (1)
Nick (1)
Nicole (1)
Nora (3)
Odessa (4)
Pandora (2)
Peyton (3)
Quinn (1)
Raith (3)
Robyn (1)
Roderick (2)
Ruiz (2)
Ryans (9)
Sable (2)
Stef (1)
Sylar (1)
Tasha (3)
Tavisha (1)
Teo (8)
Tess (1)
Veronica (2)
Walter (2)
Early Draft
by Francois
As fast as a blink, this latest petty disagreement is ended, because Francois impatiently steals the few pages of manuscript out of Teo's hand and leaves a thin red line scored between thumb and forefinger.
They both curse about it in staggered order. Francois is very sorry, mumbling apology against Teo's hand, which he'd gathered to himself immediately. Typed sheets on the ground, now.
They don't talk about it. Little healing kisses turn to teeth nipping the ends of fingers, knees pushed aside for kneeling.
In the final draft, Teo notes that the troublesome paragraph in question has been cut.
Early Blight
by Teo
The first year, Teo sucks at farming. He rants about quitting. Francois takes no pleasure in his husband's frustration, but he just— doesn't share Teo's despair.
Then Spring turns over. When Francois drives in, Teo comes out running. He shouts: "Wanna see something amazing?"
He does.
It's a baby goat, newborn. White legs, black eyepatch. Hooves that go, badok!
Afterward, Teo's so playful. He climbs Francois' back with kisses, slow, sucking on each harder than the last. He lifts Francois' hair to place the final one; it tickles. Francois has to wonder how much of this joy is for him.
Every Night
by Kaylee
Every night that she is home, it’s the same.
Night, Mom.
“Night, Emmy”
Every night, she’s never really thought about it.
“Night Kaylee.”
“Night, baby.”
Every night wasn’t like tonight.
“Night, mommy.”
“Night, sweetie.”
Every night she’s done what had been expected of her, but then it all changed. Tonight felt different.
She still loved them so much, but…
Standing in the doorway of her room, with tears of guilt and pain in her eyes, looking at the man she’s loved for almost a decade, she utters the words she never thought she’d ever say:
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Después de que el relámpago
by Ruiz (as written by Greenwich)
Antes del trueno viene el relámpago.
Siempre.
Fehaciente.
Hebras plateadas de poder y luz,
entrelazadas,
bellas,
efímeras.
Por un momento,
todo es luz
luminosa,
clara.
La noche se convierte en día.
Las sombras se borran.
Nada puede esconderse
Solo la verdad es conocida,
hermosa y justa.
Pero nunca dura.
Nunca puede durar.
Una vida es un instante.
Bella. Efimera.
No puedes atraparlo
o mantenlo en tus manos,
no importa cómo lo intentes.
No importa cuántas veces lo intente.
Y después de que el relámpago pasa,
no queda nada
excepto trueno
y la oscuridad.
El Trueno,
indignado,
llorando por amor perdido.
607
by Ruiz
Six hundred and seven.
Six hundred and seven days since I saw her. Six hundred and seven nights since I last heard her voice. Six hundred and seven dawns since I lost her. Six hundred and seven sunsets since she disappeared into the dark. Six hundred and seven days since I could not stop what I did.
Six hundred and seven times replayed in dreams. Six hundred and seven times I saved her while I slept. Six hundred and seven times I awoke to discover, in truth, that I never had.
Six hundred and seven failures. And finally, one success.
Don't Stand So
by Anonymous
You don't remember the time you bought me a dirty magazine after I asked you about something m'dad said at visitation. But you swore 'cross your heart not to tell Mum and she never found out because she never went looking. And I was mostly away besides.
Anyway -
I reckon I was a little young but no lasting harm done. I thought it was nice. The lady in the centerfold even looked a bit like you: perfect sine curve of ass, hips and pussy, calves flexed firm over spiked heels.
Eyes narrowed, pale skin silken soft on the page.
New and Familiar
by Kaylee
It was almost like the first time all over again.
Each touch of his work roughened hands and brush of lips on her body was new again. Yet each brings a lingering sense of familiarity and knowing. Sense of something she missed and longed for. Too many years had faded and blurred the memories of their bodies twined together in the darkness. Intimate moments lost to time.
She marveled at how she had forgotten the texture and warmth of his skin under her fingertips or the sensation of unspoken words or thoughts passed between them.
How could she have forgotten?
Stalwart
by Anonymous
Everytime he held her, she felt the world go quiet. All she could hear was his breath against her hair, his heart beating in his chest, his hands touching her skin. The big scary world became small and simple when he touched her and she loved him for it.
She wanted to bring his children into the world, but her body could not hold them. They withered before they drew breath. He loved her, always. She never doubted he loved her. Not once. Her only regret would be that she could not be his shield, as well as his foundation.
Vincent II
by Delia
He got me — let me off easy.
I'm probably the worst kind of person he's ever met. Humanis First, hated evolved people. Hated myself.
Those smoky eyes saw right through to my soul, chilly but hot at the same time. I wonder what sparks his fire. He just sits there, smoldering, smoking. The bright red ember glowing brightly for one puff before it dies down again.
I wonder if he has a family. If he does, is his wife like that cigarette? Does she burn up every time his lips touch her?
He's old enough to be my dad.
Art
by Deckard
Chelsea. Bella and Deckard's apartment. The living room.
A series of three paintings.
He stands upright before them because it hurts to slouch, ropy muscle cast in cords of stripped wire through the slack suspension of his forearms at his sides. Shirtless, all tattoos and bandages that don't hide blotchy bruising up his back half as well as they hide other scars.
It's been a couple of days since he's been awake, he thinks. The sun seems unnaturally white through the open window, bleaching denim's weathered sag away from his boxers.
They still don't make sense.
He should probably shower.
If You Lived Here
by Odessa
This place feels alien
though I've stopped stumbling into the night stand in the dark.
I feel like I should pain the walls, put up a poster, make this space my own
but I'll leave it all behind before too long anyway.
I wonder if I made the wrong decision.
I dial your number at night and think to ask you
but I never press send.
I should've been a better girl.
Would you have caused me to do anything different?
In all my foolish yearning, I left behind something I've never been able to reclaim.
Would I be home now?
Chase Fear With Love
by Tasha
When the shadows grow too menacing, when the settling of the building sounds too much like a door creeping ajar or footsteps approaching, when the nightmares— no, the memories— seem too real, too close, she shakes me awake.
I kiss wet cheeks and hold her trembling form, my own quivering with the startle of three a.m. awakening. I murmur promises that it will be okay. I kiss salty lips and try to chase away fear with love.
It works, sometimes. But it's temporary. The nightmares return.
I hope, someday, my love will be enough to chase them away forever.
Sleeping Giant
by Eileen
She climbs the trunk with the tips of her fingers, finding footholds where his vertebrae meet the yielding oak of his spine. A broken nail's edge traces each branch, crooked and threadbare, before it alights somewhere in his canopy and she presses a kiss to the fist-knot where his shoulders meet.
When he shifts, the earth moves. His breath is the wind passing through the memory of leaves. A voice creaks in the dark and she wraps arms around him, rests a cheek against his roughness.
Sap tastes like salt. One breath fills her with the loamy smell of him.
Security
by Deckard
Sumter fell asleep first.
Security assured in the wilds of former suburbia. Nocturnal ambiance, sheets stirring soft around the broken window and Flint sinks onto his haunches in a blue wash of moonlight, nose nearly at the pastor's. Whiskey on shivery breath. Subtle warmth, steadier now that he's crouched in bare feet and tattoos and the scarred ridge of his spine.
Three bedrooms. He selected the largest for himself and now he's hunched on the floor in the smallest, measuring brows and nose and cheekbones softer than his own.
The kind've mug that won't mind if he sleeps here too.
Skip of My Heart
by Kaylee
You were found missing again, my heart skipped a beat. All those memories hitting me at once. I worried that this time we had lost you for good. You were taken by someone that was much too powerful to stand up too.
Then the phone rang. On the other end your voice spoke my name. My world stilled and my heart skipped a beat. Emotions and feelings, I thought I had gotten past, bubbled back to the surface to haunt me.
And though the call was cut short, I was left with a smile. You were not lost after all.
Lost Target
by Ryans
Her lips are stained with my blood, as they curl into that seductive smile. I hold the limp body of my partner in my arms. Her tongue runs over her painted lips and my shoulder throbs from where she took that 'taste'. It'll scar.
We stare at each other across the distance, two predators, sizing each other up. Waiting.
I'll never ask what stopped her, what kept her from finishing what we started, but one moment her blood tinted teeth flash in a wicked smile, the next she was gone.
My lost target. That dark panther of a woman. Huruma.
Can't Turn My Back
by Kaylee
Why can't I turn my back on them?
They never turn their back on me. They took me in, sheltered me and protected me at my weakest. They didn't look at me as a bad person, showed me that there was much more important things in life.
I owe them for lifting me up and teaching me to be someone better. Who knows what I would be doing, if they hadn't taken me in or if I would even still be alive. I owe them for the second chance I've been given.
More importantly, Peter… I owe them for you.
Prayer
by Teo
The other Teos never asked You for anything, since Gia. Didn't want to know the punishment would be for the audacity of asking.
Well, times change. I'm here, now. It occurred to me of late (possibly while listening to Natalie Grant's duet) (possibly), there's as much praise in asking more as there is in giving thanks. I remember being in love before, but it's different this time, as it is different every time, but differently. This time, I'm staking claim. No agony over deserving. Not thieving a ghost out of time's locked jaws. He's mine.
Don't take him. Per favore.
3:57 AM
by Danko
Bedroom's dark between bands of city light slatted flat across the wall, but it'd be grey even if it wasn't. Familiar neutrality fossilized for one night in a vermiculate smear of seamy hotel rooms and surveillance stakeouts. The sheets stir; a restless killer lifts himself up, lists left — fuzzy skull blotted thick with shadow, eyes too slick for the hour.
Misery gnaws dull through his bones, begging cold comfort from the knowledge that he can't be alone. Even if there's nobody there.
He might've made it personal.
But any soldier worth a damn has principles.
He's not like them.
3:33
by Gillian
Three thirty three. That was the moment I realized I loved him. For every touch, every simple word. For all he did for me. Because he was going to leave it all behind and go with me.
Three thirty three. That was the moment I realized I hated him. For every ache, every false word. For all he did to so many others. Because he murdered my sister.
Three thirty three. That moment can never be fixed. The clock will be broken forever. Trapped on that time, unable to move on.
I wonder if I am trapped there, too. Broken.
Institution
by Joseph
The facility is an incomplete thing, but contained and functional. Whites and greys, bleach-bone edges and cold surfaces. He only gets to know the people and the voices to a fractional degree — Joseph becomes better acquainted with the institution in which he is kept and wonders why it feels so familiar. He has not spent so much time in hospitals, and this isn't rehab.
He sees Emile Danko's eyes in the stare of the doctor's light, the grey of the cement ground and the utter callous disdain and indifference of the locked doors, the sealed walls and mechanical routine.
Blue Gold
by Joseph
One of the first things she said was that his voice sent her back home. Though Joseph couldn't hope to hold up a mirror and see any of Abigail reflect back at him, not anymore, it doesn't deny that she's a pleasant memory herself. A cadence of the South in her words that land him in better times, a pleasurable hit of worthiness when meaning is shaped, the dizzying warmth of a generous soul.
That she doesn't have addictive qualities is and is not a blessing. You can still buy Refrain on the street for thirty bucks. Joseph has checked.
My Favourite Accessory
by Logan
You're too much cologne — overbearing and not the least bit complimentary. I dunno if you know it, really. I'm certainly not going to enlighten you to the fact that for as much as my things amuse you, you're the amusement. The gold-plating, the novelty diamond cufflinks, the leopard print satin lining beneath the charcoal-silver three-piece pinstripe. A thrift store Bedazzler.
In other words, you're very me.
Essentially, questionable taste and very annoying, but I make you look good — the only one that does. A little self-awareness might go a long way, Toru, but it's not nearly as fun.
High Noon
by Francois
April 28, 2010
…
The sun has as much light as you have love: they turn to you for it as flowers twist to benefit from whatever quality it is they gain — you share the same charisma, mon ami. And you have your night times as well, you have your distance and danger and cautionary tales. A blameless quality, a brightness, an inherent inability to be properly claimed.
The days I must steal what you give are as frequent as when I do not need to. Time will tell if you are as constant, or if you go supernova in your destruction.
…
As Your Dog
by Gabriel
The lady might admit it herself, just as one princess in Shakespearean works proudly proclaimed: I am your spaniel. That he does not have to lose Odessa, does not have to neglect, beat or spurn her. Doesn't mean she doesn't do this on her own through chemical, a change of mind and master before she brings herself to heel. She's an excerpt on a midsummer night.
There are no happy endings in this city, but there are as many tragedies as there are comedies. Do I not in plainest truth tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?
Porcelain
by Gabriel
She's porcelain; white, brittle always cool to touch. Fingers as delicate as this material, with glass fingernails ending in milky crescents, knuckles making hard angles. She turns into it when mad, mouth pinched and features bleached, a threat in her make that she'll splinter apart if you don't handle with caution, split into stinging fragments in all that she is perfectly still, composed, together. It isn't big eyes and small body that make her into the doll people think she is, but the fact that when she breaks, she'll slice you to ribbons going down, that turns her into china.
Tasha
by Colette
Is this what it feels like to be loved?
Was the mirror a delusion, or am I deluding myself?
She's my mirror; soft and shy, awkward and adorable, her smile makes me melt.
I look in her eyes and I see the girl I was, and I just want to hold her so close.
She my mirror; rebellious and tense, sensitive and sweet, her kiss sent a chill down my spine.
There's so much to love but so much to lose, I'm terrified of breaking her heart.
I just wish I could tell
Without this uncertainty
Which one
I mean
Sable
by Colette
She's fire and sparks, heat and energy, burns you up and spits out the ashes. But what a magnificent fire it is when it's lit.
Fire consumes, but it also lights the way, and even in consuming a part of my naivete she showed me something in myself I couldn't see.
She's arrogant and brash, not very classy, but no one had ever said the things about me she did. Even if she just wanted something in return; fair price.
Opportunity's past and she's following behind, and I don't know if I like the way the flames are chasing me.
Tamara
by Colette
She and I stand back to back.
She's always looking ahead at what's coming our way, and I'm always looking back and wondering what could've been.
I see that the grass is greener on the other side, and she sees how the grass will be green where there's only soil.
She saved my life and I still don't know why, but it's because I just can't understand the way she thinks. She's an obsession, a mystery, a love and wound; it feels amazing when she smiles at me.
I wish I could see what she sees.
In someone like me.
A Lighthouse
by Gillian
The place I call home reminds me of you.
A silent sweeping beacon of light in the distance, giving hope and promising comfort.
I wish I'd known that you were leading me straight into the roughest tides, where the fog is thick, the waters freezing, and the wind harsh. Straight into the sharpest rocks. The sweeping light moved on, to shine on someone else, leaving me alone in the dark, to find my own way through the rough and icy waters.
Sometimes I wish I'd never seen that light at all.
But I'm not sure who I'd be without it.
Col(e)t(te)
by Tasha
She is all startle and leap.
Too long, too thin limbs flail and quake. Too large eyes widen and roll. Kinetic, frenetic, and hyper-energetic, she's like a colt that has not yet been broken. Not quite tame and not quite wild, she frolics somewhere in the in-between. She will never fully belong to the manmade world.
Sometimes she grows still, a statue. For the most minute of moments, before something throws her into motion once more, she stands regal - beautiful and powerful in ways she does not yet own.
But not today. Today, she's all startle and leap.
Roses
by Kaylee
Delicate white petals of a dozen roses are like silk against my fingers.
No one has given me flowers before.
My nose is to stopped up to catch the delicate scent.
I wish I could smell them.
The cellophane crinkles in my hand as my arms tighten around them.
Their so beautiful. So thoughtful.
I cradle them close and give a content sigh.
I've never felt this way about someone.
No, one other, just not as deeply.
I close my eyes and a tear slides down my cheek.
It's going to hurt when he sees the truth and walks away.
Five Reasons Bolivar Is With Raquelle
by Bolivar
- Sex.
- If I sleep with him, it'll take him longer to leave me.
- Who the cunt's asking? There aren't enough sweet, precocious, Eurasiatically hot bitch-queen fruitcakes to go around? You've checked? Maybe that's just you.
- What it isn't: I'm not lonely without him. I don't grocery list his girls' cereal brands above my dog food. Don't save him stories from work, don't practice telling them driving home. I'm not afraid he's afraid of me; I'm sure as fuck not afraid he's afraid for me. It's not like I can't fucking live without him.
- Not exactly.
Dear Dorothy
by Audrey
I'll get you my little pretty, and your little dog too. I know what she means, I say it to myself in the mirror every morning when I check to see if I have any new freckles. I'll get you and your little dog too. Has more meaning these days. I'll get you and your two little dogs. You're little clones. I can see the one, parked in the lighthouse, sitting in an orphanage nice and safe. Bide your time Sylar, hide behind the image of a dead girl and play house to brats. I'll get you my little pretty.
Folktale
by Anonymous
He met her on a road; he'd fallen from his horse, and she stopped to dust him off. The horse was gone, but she stayed. Even through the smoke of many adventures and labours, she would be there to hand him his sword or wield one herself.
Most heroes have noble steeds or squires, little boys with daggers and eyes for golden crowns- he had her, and though he got many a jeer, he would not have had it otherwise.
While the fire burns down to embers, she is there to shed his armour, mop his hair- kiss his battle-scars.
Disclaimer
by Gillian
Sexual contact with me must be a curse. I should come with a disclaimer.
Gabriel got shot, sent to the future, shot again, lost his power, shot some more, was "killed", split into pieces.
Cardinal swallowed a nuclear bomb and "died" heroically, only to end up trapped in his shadow form in pieces.
I never even had sex with Peter. A kiss was it. I can't even list all the things that happened to him. The list is too long.
Now Leonardo Maxwell's gone and died in a plane crash.
My next tattoo? A disclaimer.
Enter at your own risk.
Five Ways Teo Never Had Sex
by Teo
- Vertically, one partner upside-down.
- "I love you," orgasming inside her. (Too late now.)
- Hand-gagging Francois.
- Afterward, his wrist branded by a bruised dashed circle.
- Hatefully.
"Why're you stopping?" he asked. Teo didn't answer, staring. He couldn't explain: this rare need to remember exactly, for one experience prevailing without nostalgic reinterpretation, abridging, or flashy rhetoric. This curly cursive of red eyelashes and inarticulate toes, white thigh sleeked taut as a bowstring, expertly drawn. The exquisite fear endemic to the trust constricting his pupils. Eventually, Teo knew already, he'd regret doing this; just not more than forgetting.
Ghost
by Daphne
It was easy to pretend I wanted nothing but the touch of your lips and your body to mine. It was easy to see you loved someone else. In your pale eyes, it was always her I saw reflected, not me. In your dark room, there were not two of us, but three.
But the irony is…
She led me to you, in dream and in body. She gave you the power to call me back.
With her haunting your heart, an unrequited love, the odds were against us.
Now that she haunts your conscience, I don't stand a chance.
How To
by Abigail
It's like I was born without the manual that everyone else has. How to say I love you , when to, should you even say it. How to know when to touch someone, when to kiss, where to kiss, when to hold, the etiquette of dating, the do and don'ts of love. Or maybe I'm just at the first chapter after I skipped to the end and I'm reading it backwards. Breaking my heart. Someone slipped that chapter in early, Teodoro probably. Sicilians know all about breaking hearts. Baptists just know about saving them. Maybe someday I'll un-break mine. Please.
Robert
by Abigail
I have had just enough liquid grief. Someone comes up and buys a shot for themselves and one for me and I can't pass because I don't want to drink anymore. Maybe that's why I sighed softly when he pushed me against a wall and confessed that he feels he's disappearing even as our hips met. He doesn't know that he isn't. That he's very real beneath my hand, his heart beating in his throat when I palm his neck. When we were sliding against each other. When my lips are pressed to his and he says Abigail like that.
Huruma
by Abigail
I can feel your fingers in my mind. Not your real fingers. Those are on my shoulders squeezing gently. I mean the ones that you use to realign my emotions. Feel them run over the sadness and the guilt and dig in. Take those feelings and work them like some grand piece of art. Guilt transforms into calm. Sadness to delight. You paint on joy like a rising sun to dominate my mind while you stand there with a hand on my shoulder and watch everyone else around me like some dangerous glittering creature. My emotional guardian and Nubian queen.
Ode to J
by Abigail
You'll find your voice again.
You'll find the words that you need to say to inspire the masses. To bring them back to wherever you settle yourself. I have faith. It is going to take time, and patience and belief that what you do, even if someone else's uses it to hurt others, is still good. Nothing bad can come of following your call.
But it's your call and I can only wait until the day when you find your voice. When you do take the pulpit and speak his words. Till then, I have the faith enough in you.
Weakness: Ball-Bashers
by Cooper
You know, I've started to notice I have a weakness for certain types of woman.
The real ball bashing types. The type of woman that makes men tuck their genitals between their legs and run the other way. Those men were the smart ones.
Me? I married two.
I couldn't even begin to tell you what about them gets my motor running, even when they slap me down and I snap right back. We treat each other like crap and obviously dislike each other.
Maybe I'm just a damn glutton for punishment, but that Agent Hanson…
Woof, what a woman.
Kodak Moment
by Raith
Kids.
Kids are one of those things, you know? I've got three myself, right now, maybe a fourth on the way, can't say for certain. They're a real handful, and sometimes, I wonder what the hell I was thinking. It's a pain to keep track of all of them. Especially when they go running off unsupervised so frequently. They can really drive a guy up the wall.
But there's an odd sort of comfort that comes with kids. Maybe it's the comfort of knowing they'll come charging through gunfire if it means saving an old man. There's your Kodak moment.
Fear and Loathing
by Logan
Logan might imagine he's made people feel like this before, which is rather Deckard's point.
They discussed power. Pain and fear help, and the older of the two had had a name to scream. But also the removal of rational thought until the world is constricting, the world is flesh, and all John can think about is the knife and its ecstasy and what it's doing to him. He wants to beg. Let me give you my eyes, let me use my hands on you. Because slicing to the heart was always going to be a big disappointment.
For anyone.
Fucking Hypocrite
by Gillian
You said I needed to love myself before I could love anyone else. You should look in a mirror.
You said I didn't belong in Argentina, or any position of authority. I saved our lives and you wouldn't have belonged there if not for a Nazi ghost.
You said we weren't ready to be with anyone until we figured out who we were. Sure figured yourself out fast.
You said you wanted to be my friend and that I wasn't capable of it. From the way you treated me, you wouldn't know friendship if it punched you in the face.
Happiness: The Couch
by Melissa
Happiness is curling up in the dark. The lights flickering from the movie playing on the TV. The sound of screams and laughs and explosions. The smell of buttery popcorn heavy on the air. The taste of it. The feel of the warm body pressed against you. The strong shoulder that your head rests upon.
It doesn't matter what type of movie we pick. Whether we laugh or cry. If we cringe in the dark from the horror on the screen. That's irrelevant. What matters is that I'm happiest when I sit on a couch and watch movies. With you.
Fuck My Life
by Gillian
The rain fell as you kissed me, soaking through the clothes that you grabbed at. Fueled by envy and desire, the thunder rumbled over the ground, shaking the side of the car that you pinned me against. Deeper and deeper. Your hands grabbed at my body, my hair. I grabbed back. Your mouth went to my neck, slick with rain. I wanted you, I wanted to feel you under the wet clothes. I wanted you to feel me.
But everything went wrong as the touching stopped and you tried to bash my head open with a wrench.
Fuck my life.
Happiness: Exposure
by Teo
Teo doesn't acknowledge his leg until he's bodily hauled onto the dresser. Francois scrunches up the gashed pant leg to stare.
Maladroit, he says. Robuste, Teo retorts.
Pain stings gooseflesh into his calf when Francois scrapes and irrigates, angrily describing infection. Scars. Teo lolls his head. Pretends a long, elaborate boredom. He gives up neither charade, even when he's abruptly shucked bare-legged. Not at pulling mouth. Nor when Francois stops.
You're tough enough. Happy?
Then a pang. Teo kisses him, and makes a production of grimacing at the taste. Allows himself to be kissed again, and his knees hiked. Better.
Mad Dogs and Fist Fights
by Raith
Look at this asshole. Just look at his eye, with all that bruising. All me, baby. Serves him right, he knows what mad dogs do to me. The vodka kind, not the furry kind.
Look at this blonde bimbo. Her own fault for backing up this asshole. She knows what mad dogs do to me.
And look at this crazy bitch. Why's she mad at me? It's not like I hit her on purpose. She knows what they do to me.
And in ten minutes, we'll all be best friends again, like it never happened.
We should fist-fight more often.
Done by People
by Nicole
"Dick." Name or insult, neither are sure.
"Nic'. You look good."
"Spare me." She won't do him the same courtesy. "You were supposed to leave her alone."
It sounds so simple. It was never simple. "You got old."
Old at seventeen.
Blues flash. "She stood a chance." He took that chance from them both.
"You never said stop," he sneers. She reveals her gun. "What're you gonna do with that?"
This time it's the muzzle that flashes. She's disabled his weapon.
He screams. "You liked it, you whore!"
It's why she empties the rest of the magazine into his chest.
Borrowed
by Anonymous
My clothes smell like fresh rain. They always give her away.
I don't think she's realised it yet.
We're too much alike sometimes. We both think we know better, and we're both stubborn. She's the light to my dark. It's why we couldn't stay together. I'm too angry and she's too full of hope.
I promised to break her arm if she had me call her aunt. I wish she had become, for her sake and his. I wish it had worked out, for all my misgivings. I wanted them to be happy.
Big dummy.
I want my jeans back.
Morning After
by Kaylee
As the copper colors of the morning sun filter in, specks of dust glint and sparkle as they float through the light, I wake up with your arms around me. Body curled up along my back, keeping the chill at bay. Warm breath stirring the hair at the back of my neck.
A smile touches my lips, a soft sigh escaping. For once, I don't feel disgust in myself. I don't hate myself the morning after. I feel content and even happy.
I don't want it to end, I want to stay there in that moment just a little longer.
The Dance
by Kaylee
Your hand on the small of my back, other clasped in mine, my fingers play lightly with the hair at the base of you neck. Nervous smiles shared and shy glances.
Only a single spill of light to illuminate us, as we turn across hardwood floors, in the privacy of your home. You guide me along in familiar footsteps, pulling me closer.
While Sinatra croons about the blue moon, we look into each others eyes, blue to brown, realizing for a moment there might be something more.
A tender kiss, a gentle sigh.
So this is what it is like.
Grudging Respect
by Ryans
In a puff of smoke he'll be gone, that cocky son of a bitch. Floating away like dust on the wind, acting as if he's better then everyone else.
He gets under my skin, like so many thorns poking uncomfortably at my tender skin.
However, I will never show it, I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing what he does to me.
When it comes down to it, though, he is still on the same team with somewhat similar goals, even if in different departments.
For that, he gets some respect, even if I would rather just punch him.
Dream
by Corbin
Your dark hair made the sky as you moved over me. Your dark eyes shined, paler than they should be, nearly golden, then darker than the space between the stars. Your pale skin all the light in the world. Everything but us would melt away.
Sometimes you would say my name, others only whispered, breathy, unintelligible sounds.
In the dreams, you said my beard was too scratchy; when I shaved it off, went to work, you laughed and said I looked too young.
I never knew if the dreams were my own, you, or some reflection of your fractured self.
Temporary Daughter
by Brennan
You're the living embodiment of a dead girl. A weapon so powerful and a tool so innocent, you know not what you do, how it can be used. Don't be stupid he begs me even as we stick to our ten day schedule. You ask me when you're going home and I have to delay because I don't know. I ask the darkness that every night and no answer. Soon we'll have the answer to your question and I can take you home. A matched pair, dead girls for a crazed but brilliant scientist. It'll hurt to give you over.
Willing
by Eileen
If more people knew about us, they'd think it was rape, and although this makes me a worse person than the one I am for spreading my legs in the first place… I might let them.
They'd say you plied me with drugs or alcohol, accuse you of forcing my consent, ability dragging your name from my mouth—
Well. Somebody's name. It doesn't matter whose when it's leaking hot and wet into your ear or when I'm opening myself for you regardless of the history we share.
The truth is that while it wasn't always good, I was always willing.
Catharsis
by Anonymous
A Greek word meaning: purging. Ours is a ritual, though no two times are ever exactly the same. It starts with my mouth on yours or your mouth on mine, terse words hissed past front teeth that bite and catch and pull. Escalates from there.
I like to pretend that when you hurt me, it's because you can't forgive my body for being separate from yours, or you have some way of understanding the desperate noises I make at the back of my throat, begging for release and demanding you allow yourself the same.
Whenever you go first, I follow.
Youth
by Francois
Tattoos draw paths, mimicked with fingertip touches, and Francois would not write his name next to the eagle or the chess piece. It's not how he operates, and his touches remain random and exploratory. There are few things in the world he would try to claim, and Teodoro isn't an exception, even if the world tries to draw parallels between love and possession.
He mutters something against the nape of Teo's neck, and it's French for you flatter me, though Teo hasn't said a thing, nor yet woken up.
Youth is wasted on the young, in most cases. Not his.
Occhi azzurri, Capelli rossi
by Delilah
When her hands, soft and firm, are entwined in his paws of long digits and rough palms, she always remembers the gentleness in them- him; the brushes of coarseness along the curves of her thighs, the fingers to her hair. Lips touching gingerly over the arches of her neck, her own to the scratchiness of jawbone. His heat seeping into her muscles, her touch to the chill surface of his skin, cold from rain, crisp on contact just like his eyes- which she can only try to warm with the earthen heat of her own. Fire and water make steam.
Peter II
by Melissa
You're so cute. That little half-grin and the awkwardness. How much you try to pretend like you're a good little boy with a girlfriend. Like you don't want me. But the act is all too apparent, darlin'. Even before I kissed you, I knew. The way you avoided touching me, and flinched when you did. Because it was wrong. You shouldn't like it, not if you really were faithful. But why pretend? Acts never make people happy for long. After a time, the illusion breaks down, and you're stuck with the truth.
And remember. The second time? You kissed me.
Liette
by Melissa
At first you were just a responsibility. And a frustrating one at that. But you are so innocent. More innocent than anyone else I've ever met, of any age. Too innocent. You don't know that what they've done to you is wrong. You don't know the difference between right and wrong at all. I find all I want to do is to help you. To make your life better. To introduce you to the world and let you experience it through a child's eyes while you still can.
Childhood is too short as it is, my dear. Don't waste it.
Luke
by Melissa
I took you under my wing, Luke. Into my house, to be protected from the same people who would lock me up as quickly as you. It was my job, but more, it's my calling. We're different, not wrong. But sometimes you make it hard to prove that. You're a poor example, my microwaveable friend. And you make it so hard to keep you under the radar sometimes. Do you want to go back to the hole? Do you want to be their little experiment? You accept my protection, this much is true, yes, but?
You blew up a bridge!
Dodo, l'enfant do
by Abigail
Dodo, l'enfant do, L'enfant dormira bien vite. How much time passed between when he saw the child before he saw the grown woman. Dodo, l'enfant do L'enfant dormira bientot. Pink hair, body fleshed out in hips, bust, but still that same girl. Une poule blanche. Est la dans la grange. She came to him twice, untouched by what he gave her, offering to help him. Qui va faire un petit coco. She thinks that long ago her mother sang it to her, not a dying Frenchman sure his fate was sealed by cherubic cheeks. Pour l'enfant qui va fair' dodo.
The Gift
by Kaylee
What is in this box, has stood the test of time. It once belonged to my great-grandfather, it supposedly saved his life. It has been in the thick of war and it has endure the furies of mother nature. It has witnessed everything; love and hate, Joy and sadness, birth and death. And despite everything, it has endured. It might not be shiny new, and it has quite a few dents and chips, but it still continues to give meaning to so many people.
Reminds me of some one… and so I think he needs this crucifix more then me.
Abby
by Melissa
I didn't think I liked you, the first time we met. You insulted my clothes, or perhaps just me. Corsets are clothing, you know. But like a mold, you grew on me. Each visit you seemed a little less uptight, a little more human. A little less a girl I'd like to avoid, and more one I could spend time talking to. Someone I could go to when I needed to vent about work or guys. Always guys. I don't even have to censor my words. That's not something I ever would've expected.
But then, I have always liked surprises.
Kendall
by Melissa
I'm not your mom. I'm too young for one thing. I'm not even sure I know how to be a good mom. Aren't you supposed to start when a baby, so you can learn even as the child does? I don't know how to be a mother to a teenager. I still remember ten years ago when I was your age, though the memories begin to dim.
But how can I deny you? Your own mother failed you. You didn't fail her. You deserve to have a normal family.
I'm just not sure I know what that is. What's normal?
You
by Melissa
When I climb into bed at night, I go there alone. With just a dog to warm my feet, but not the bed beside me. I reach out for you in the night, hoping that a passing dream has turned into reality, and you will be there next to me. To take me into your arms and hold me while the pitch black of the night fades into the gold and pink of sunrise.
But every morning when I wake, you're not there. Just cold sheets and a pillow still fluffed. So I sigh, roll over, and return to dreams.
Bastard
by Abigail
There's something about that month, month or more that I don't want to forget. I'll never tell him, never tell anyone what it is. What came after the green flare. The way happiness and warmth bubbled up from infinitesimal point of origin in my body. It crept forward like a warm blanket pulled over me and after the first time, I never fought it again. I can see why they love him. I loved him too for that. I confess when I hit him, I wanted to feel that again. He disappointed me and gave me only pain. You bastard.
Europeans
by Eileen
"Je t'aime," he says, and maybe this time he means it. The Sicilian's hands are rough, weathered, his palms made callused by long months spent at sea during arduous cross-Pacific passages more demanding than the compact press of his mouth sealing around his. He smells like salt and sweat and the slow burn of tobacco wrapped in porous brown paper — in South America, he remembers that they used plantain leaves to roll them. His lover is almost as pliant, and unlike the medicinal herb relieves nothing. He aggravates his condition instead, making him want love more than he loves wanting.
First Time
by Abigail
The first time you touched me in that way, a hotel room in Milwaukee far away from everyone we knew and nothing but anger at the world and unresolved sexual tension that should have come out in rough handling and bruises that make us groan in other ways afterward. You slid under my skin like your hands slid over it in places never touched before by anything. The smell of whiskey winding through my senses, tasting it on your lips, smelling it on your skin. Instant arousal. I don't know if I want to do it without that smell again.
Dear Cooper
by Audrey
There's just something that seems to just ripple from his toes and all the way up to his hair when he sees me or hears me coming. The way every strike of my heel reverberates through him, the momentary look that flashes across his face. Like a rabbit that's been caught bounding right through that sunny meadow by a badger. Or a hunting dog. He thinks badger. The fall of his face when I take the last powdered donut and the hound dog happiness to be given even half back. God. The power that the man gives me without knowing.
I would fuck you but
by Deckard
I would fuck you
but I think you might be gay
or seventeen
with a fake ID.
You probably don't approve of murdering innocents either, although
when we met, you were working with that one guy. Maybe you still are. My memory's going. For instance
I can't remember if I've seen you looking at a man before. I mean, really looking, breathy and wet and thinking about his hands on you. I watch too often while you're on stage. Narrow hips. Your eyes are dark and you've never looked at me that way
but a lot of sober women don't.
Permission
by Gabriel
Happy endings only exist in fiction, and that isn't because Gabriel has a cynical outlook on life. He does know that endings are quick and unexpected. He's orchestrated enough of them. So when he looks at her, he doesn't see a happy ending, no matter what the time travelers have to say about the matter. When he looks at her, he sees grey eyes, soft mouth, tiny hands, and challenge.
The bad guys aren't supposed to get the girl and psychopaths aren't supposed to know what love is. But in the words of the ghost of a friend: fuck permission.
Blondes
by Joseph
Sharp words out of her soft mouth. To be honest, Joseph even liked it. You can't stay married for a matter of years without enjoying your honey's flaws too. The next blonde over was like looking in a mirror, except that Abigail figured out how to be a Christian in this city.
The only reassurance Joseph has for Kaylee is that he's forgiven murderers before she came along.
He'd thought of his wife when he'd looked at Harlow— blame the psychoactives for that. No excuse when it comes to Meredith, though.
"What are you lookin' at?"
Nothing. Not a thing.
Lemon Sweet
by Helena
"There's a hole in the bucket, De-lilah, De-lilah…"
Those aren't the right words.
But it doesn't matter. Helena sings them in her sweet mezzo as she moves through the kitchen. She smells of citrus and baking things; when asked she just laughs at Dee and flicking some flour at her, tells the redhead that she just likes to stress bake. Wiping her hand against her cheekbone, Helena leaves a smudge there and Delilah wonders what Helena would do if she touched her face and then wipe it away with her thumb.
"There's a hole in the bucket, De-lilah, a hole…"
Drunk Poetry
by Teo
My girl's got a heart like the sun cut through the sea. That's like a song. One from the past, not the future. Drinks on me, if you can figure out which one (except not really).
She took care of me. Still believes in me. Should have married her. I'd write about her tits— you'd like them, even if small areolas aren't usually your type, but she would prefer to hear poetry and this is neither superficial nor girlish. It puts the heart in hearty and deigns not explain why.
There is her motion in the play of lambskin clouds.
Not 2006
by Teo
In the world where Teo tries to and actually saves Alexander… he has to break a mirror to find it, first. There's no rabbit hole, no reality flip, only dumb blond panic. Slippery glint of bone, serous-bunched skin, arterial blood sliming insurance card and staining loose bills black. One cab driver pulls him in anyway. "Ah've seed worse, son. Keep pressure," but the gauze—
—it's holding itself. Teo just thinks: already hallucinating.
The radio begins fiercely about PARIAH, but the driver jabs it off. "Family?"
Teo chokes mid-prayer.
Empathy looks at him from the rearview. "I'll stay with you."
Normal Girl
by Helena
To one man, a daughter.
To another, the sister he never had.
To yet another, a pawn he could maneuver as it suited him.
One saw her as an annoyance he might have to kill one day, but if he did, he'd reap the rewards in the doing of the deed.
She never really understood what she was to the one she chose to love, just ultimately not what he needed.
Most look to her as a would-be martyr.
All this one sees is an ass that fills out her jeans and a nice rack.
Helena likes it that way.
Without You
by Helena
The things you do? They drive me crazy.
Like how you insisted on calling them Homeland Satan.
Like how I cant seem to convince you that there's any music of value in the twenty-first century.
Like how you put all that faith in me.
That's the craziest of all, you know. It keeps me up at night, makes me wonder if someday you'll start to think you made a mistake. Makes me worry you'll realize that I am not deserving of your friendship.
The things you do? They drive me crazy.
And I don't know what I'd do without you.
Everything Burns
by Helena
She can't look into a fire without thinking of him.
The irony didn't escape her that all that remained of him was so much ash. Shed never believed that there could be a crucible too hot for him, but that night shed been proven wrong. If he'd been burned by his own flames, would he have risen again?
There would be no rising from those ashes. Only memories are left, but those memories were powerful enough to have built something. She's scared that she doesn't have enough of her own fire left to sustain it.
In the end, everything burns.
Bonds
by Melissa
There are things which forge a bond between two people who might otherwise have ignored each other. Things which make them as close as best friends or sisters. Or, in some case, even lovers. Tragedy is one, and perhaps that which is best known. Secrets are another. When you're an evil mastermind, your confidants become your bosom buddies. Who else can you brag about your devilish successes to?
But what happens when you share a tragedy? When you add a secret on top of that? The tie becomes tighter. It can strangle if you're not careful.
Am I that careful?
Christmas Lights
by Odessa
I said, "I'll never leave you," and I meant it. But I lied.
He showed me what Christmas could be. Bought a tree, and we decorated it with lights and tinsel. He put a golden-haired angel atop. "Because it looks like you, Joy," he murmured into my ear as I surveyed the soft glow of our creation. He created a brighter glow in me after dark.
I kissed the dusk of his lips, his dark lids and darker hair. "Last night was the best of my life," I whispered into pre-dawn, "I love you." Told him something true.
I left.
First Glance
by Melissa
When I first saw you, I was smitten. You weren't the prettiest of the bunch, nor did you have the best form. You weren't even the most charismatic. So what was it that drew me to you, I wonder?
Was it the smile?
The way you moved?
The haunted look in your eyes?
Whatever it was, I knew that I had to know more. I had to discover what made you smile. How to make you move to me. How to wipe that look from your eyes.
Now I must ask. What did you see when you first saw me?
Gaea
by Anonymous
When I think of Mother Nature, I think of a younger woman rather than an older one. She is always young, because the years since her creation are a thumbprint compared to the universe. I picture a young, strong woman, with hair and eyes that catch the sunlight and hands that hold me steady. Arms to embrace me, and lips that tell me about the sins that mankind ought to fix. Sins we ought to fix, and how much she wants to do it for us.
When I think of Mother Nature, do I think of Helena? I think so.
Hero
by Peyton
The world will never know it was saved by shadow- how Darkness embraced Death to protect this unkind, thankless planet.
I know. His presence— inky, tattered as it is— humbles me.
But even before he saved the world, he saved me. He gave me a purpose. Saw something worthwhile in a spoiled, scared uptown girl. Would I have made it otherwise? Or would I have slipped, succumbed to the madness that beckons to so many victims? Every moment I spend in his dark world, I learn what it means to be brave.
And I'm no longer afraid of the dark.
Aquila
by Eileen
I can't call you one of mine because you're not, but if you were I'd wear you on my arm, let you press your face into my cheek and feed you from my fingers, thumb braving the curve of a hooked mouth carved for killing.
Instead, I settle for blunt nails and revel in the graze of sharp teeth, always wishing my smallness didn't compel you to be so gentle with me; when I look into your eyes lit gold it's impossible not to draw the comparison between man and bird. My Garuda, my Aquila, they name constellations for you.
I've Never Known
by Anonymous
Not mirror images, not really. Her shoulders are narrower, eyes greener. Already she looks more like an adult, if the other knows where to look. Blue eyes stare back, arms entwined and noses touching gently. Green eyes close for just a moment, body leaned into another and a head rest onto shoulder, breath is warm. It's not normal for people to have relationships like this, but they have always been so desperately far from normal; it suits them. Mirrors looking to celebrate newfound differences. "What is love like?" Green eyes ask wordlessly, and their blue mirrors reply, "I've never known."
Mio Caro Fratello
by Eileen
Leonardo da Vinci: Italian polymath.
Galileo Galilei: physicist, astronomer, philosopher.
Valentinus: patron saint of happy marriages, affianced couples and bee keepers.
Teodoro Laudani: saved a little lost girl.
Unless you go before me (I feel in my heart that you won't), no one will remember to attribute this to you when you die. They'll swathe your body in black and wash your face with warm water, dutifully scrub under your nails and maybe if you're lucky you'll have someone to kiss the blood from your mouth, brush closed your eyes and whisper, "Grazie, mio caro fratello."
I wish you were.
Alone
by Melissa
I stand alone on the brink of war. A war that has already begun in places. There have been casualties on both sides, and I'll fight to keep from being the next.
But I don't want to fight alone. Is that why I try to take him? Is it nothing more than loneliness? Or is there something there? Something real? How do I know the difference? I've never been in love before. Never had someone to call my own.
Part of me screams to fight, always to fight, but the skeptical side? it tells me to wait. I'll find someone.
Munhango, Bie
by Huruma
Huruma was never partial to staying in coastal countries. She was never one for the seaside. Being in Angola during the heart of the civil war was purely luck.
The marines were always in and out. Something about Savimbi.
Only a few of them seemed remotely invested, only one interesting. Huruma had seen him several times before, though only spoke to him once before she appeared in the camp that night to raise an alarm.
Such a sweet name for a man so ruthless. She loves to say it, and he probably still hates when she does. Emile, Emile, Emile
Mystery
by Gillian
Who am I now?
I used to know who I was until I met you. Now it feels like each day is a mystery waiting to be solved and that mystery is me.
Do I fight or do I run away? Do I give to those around me or do I only take? Can I hold on to what I am or will it all disappear like you did? Did I truly love you or did I just want you to love me?
And do I even know which one of you I'm talking to?
I don't think I do.
2015
by Teo
Eileen snips the final thread of gauze, peels off the third gooey cross-section of a finger. He grimaces. "Is it bad?"
"Wouldn't wager Abby'd come if it wasn't." Way-jah.
"There's your accent."
"I miss yours," she teases. (They're both right.)
(She's been in the States forever; he, in Israel too long.)
"I'm… I'm thinking about quitting."
Silence. Then, "Surprising, how few do."
"Quit?"
"Think about it, first."
"Thought Abby sees the veterans."
"I comfort their children."
(You see, she had promised too: No bringing ghosts home. Not Danielle's. Not even Munin's from the well.)
Honestly, then. "You'll make a good mother."
Never
by Anonymous
If she knew, she would leave.
Never would he be allowed to marvel at the size of her small hands when they sit in his or compare the lily smoothness of her skin to his coarser leather.
Never would he take her hair between his fingers and rub the cornsilk curls over his thumb like a flower petal, releasing their fragrance in order to inhale her sweetness and intoxicate himself with it.
Never would he slake his hunger through her mouth or bury his nose in the soft hollow of her throat just to hear her pulse fluttering there.
Never.
Night
by Anonymous
Storms at night- that is what reminds me of him now. I would have agreed with that even before.
He is dark in the way that night can be; sometimes lit with reflections of his world and twinkles in his eyes and smile- sometimes pitch black when his spirit is sore and his eyes aim down to the ground, lips downturned at the corners.
The thunder that he's got inside only shows when he strikes out. Warm droplets of water that hug me close, smooth and clinging to my hair. The static in the air, buzzing impishly in my heart.
Parasite
by Eileen
She knows she should feel some guilt for using threats to frighten her into compliance, but what she feels instead is a grim kind of satisfaction that leaves a taste in her mouth which, while bitter, isn't entirely unpleasant.
It's not because they're in love with the same man, and it's not because she slept with her father, draped herself in his shirt and wandered the apartment like a lost little lamb sheared for the first time.
It's because she looks at her and she sees someone who reminds her of what she remembers she once was. Desperate. Needy.
Parasitic.
Peter
by Abigail
Normal is his battlecry. His plea with every breath. "I want for normal. For the world to stop knocking on my door and begging."
Normal, is not possible I say. "Normal is an unattainable state of being that we were not born to or born for. Bombs threaten, Viral plagues, shoulders heavy with the burdens. Cries of 'HELP' coming from all corners to be saved. That is our normal. This is our world."
We don't get normal dashing from one apocalypse to the next. You want normal? Shoulda become a mailman Peter. Not a Paramedic.
You're still saving the world.
Prologue
by Danko
He watches her through a fire that belongs to other men - darker men — eyes cut silvery, wet through the silt slashed and dried grey across his hollow face. The way she moves. The way firelight radiates fluid warmth off her skin but never catches hold in her soul the way it does in her smile.
The way she watches him, so mirthfully aware
that in a war like this one, it's the little things that matter most. Rigor mortis loosing its grip to the noonday sun. Desperation in a drowning man's face. Sticky leaves and sucking mud.
She's dangerous.
Regrets
by Eileen
Ask me what I regret the most.
It isn't refusing to fight him when he used his hands to cover my nose and my mouth.
It isn't breaking myself into pieces like bread, stale and unwanted, and throwing it all away to a flock of thieving birds.
It isn't signing an execution warrant with my tongue every time I whispered a name into his ear.
What I regret the most is showing strength, resolve and restraint the one time I should have succumbed to temptation and given you strychnine with your water when you were too weak not to drink.
Salvation
by Kaylee
I looked for you, I fought to find you and bring you home. I tried to give you hope, when things seemed so bleak, and to give you an shoulder to lean on.
All because you said I was a good person.
I wanted to prove you right, to be what you thought you saw in me. It forced me to look at myself and see just how truly misguided I was.
You were my salvation.
Then I told you everything about me. Spilled out all my sins.
Do you still see the good in me?
Do you see me?
Shooting Star
by Corbin
She was always bright and fast, like a shooting star. Always moving, always running, always shining. Even when she tried to hide away her light, he could still see it. Even when she tried to run away, he still found it. Even when the sickness took her, she still had it.
But now he's the one hiding. He doesn't want her to see what he's becoming; the light of the Star he once was is failing.
A star that dies collapses on itself, swallowing all nearby light. And the last thing he wants to do is steal her light away.
Temptation
by Kaylee
A well placed suggestive word, a subtle use of my ability, and they would be all mine.
Mine to hold.
Mine to use.
Mine to toss away.
They would love me and never hurt me.
With each persuasive word the black coils of temptation would tighten their hold on me. Whisper to me sweetly of what I could have and make me want more.
Then I learned how truly happy I could be if I let those men stay free. Learned what love truly is.
Now the black coils of temptation holds no sway over me.
But for how long?
The Puppet Man and Me
by Kaylee
They tell me he is a bad and that I should stay away, but when you look inside we are not much different.
The Puppet man and I have both killed with our power. Made people do what we want with a flick of our wrists, and found satisfaction in it.
Yet, we would do what we can to protect the Ferrymen kids and our friends.
That's why I consider him one of my best friends, because we are alike.
I know one day he could turn on me, but till then, he'll be my friend, someone I will trust.
The Truth
by Melissa
Is it true? What they say? I don't want to believe it, but part of me wonders. Part of me fears. If it's true, I don't know if I can stay. I don't know if I can trust you. It isn't something that I can easily forgive, and certainly not something that I can forget. It's horrible the things you may have done, the people you may have hurt. But how can I know for sure? If I ask, you may lie, and I would accept the lie, because it's what I want to be true.
Spare me the truth.
Triangles
by Daphne
Alone in his apartment, she touches his possessions. Books. CDs. A watch. A pen. A framed photograph of him with another woman— one she knows, but does not know. One she's seen, but not met.
Her fingers drift over the photograph, as if she could read by Braille just what she means to him. What he means to her. Are they in love, these two? Are they fated to be? Despite all of her promises that this is not serious, is she keeping them apart?
Part of her hopes not.
Part of her that knows she loves him doesn't care.
Worthless
by Deckard
He likes her on top of him.
That way it feels like he isn't forcing her.
Afterward she molds herself gently to his side, stale with sweat and old panic stirs cold in his gut against the natural brush of her arm across his scrubby chest in the semidark. Subtle like the cool, tender tease of an anaconda's forked tongue before the rest of her affectionate coils loop in to smother and crush.
He should say something but everything is the wrong thing.
He should touch her.
He apologizes instead
muffled
never sure exactly for what,
but she's already asleep.
Would That I Could But I Can't
by Abigail
Would that I could turn back time. Not hop back and forth at whim to set right what is wrong. I would turn it back and see all that I missed with my own eyes. See the time when our hands touched and shared something divine. Rewind and watch that exact moment where the illusions broke and I saw the world without it's shine of naivete. Watch him watching me. That I could see this dead future of what could have been and a happiness that he swears we had. Where I still had it. I can wish. I dream.