Flash fiction (20): The aftermath

This one was written for Dan Mader's 2minutesgo writing exercise – the only thing managing to kick my butt into writing lately. 

This week I injured a finger. I touch-type and I'm never taking that for granted again. Typing with one hand is kind of slooooow. This took forever! I guess this is an ode to little fingers!

The aftermath

So the thing was said in two words when speech wasn’t needed, the reply losing itself upon the wind whistling through his brain. In the darkness in which he wrapped himself these things he came to see: the arch of her back, the light dancing in her eyes, the red flecks in her hair. But it hadn’t always been that way. In the past they always sat in rooms, silent; the back of her head the only thing given freely. The monotone answer of her voice stagnant water, the tapping echo of her pencil tip an irritation he could never scratch. She was always good at sums, able to add up anything. Numbers were her thing. And dates. Birthdays, weddings, appointments, anything – some so random as to be inconsequential. And anniversaries. He breathed in the smoke. His one downfall the pitiful memory he inherited from his father, no matter what they say about most chromosomes being inherited from your mother. How he wished. The woman filed memories like an elephant. He stubbed out the cigarette butt on the step and gazed down at Layla’s soft, brown eyes beneath him. She barked and cocked her head to one side. He nodded and stood. It would be a while before it was safe to venture back inside anyway.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, Dec 22, 2017

A Poem a Day (67): Sweeping

Written for Dan Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise...

Sweeping

It slides and it

Slips

This thing by the wayside,

This sliver

Of a lie

Speckled with dust;

A shimmer of an age

Fast vanishing into air

Spring steps out

With a sigh

Upon a blackbird

Cast adrift in a

Faint blue sky,

While all else ends in

A crimson-coloured red

These times are made

For changing,

This life by the wayside

Cast in dust,

Clothes worn too long;

Fragile bones ache

In this rigid earth

Discoloured and dank.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 10, 2017

A Poem a Day (66): Pressure

Written for Dan Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise...

Pressure

The biggest lies we tell ourselves,

Shrinking our souls into endless shapes,

Fitting, squeezing, depriving them of air,

Fearing to step outside these strict lines

Boundaries, fences, walls, cages,

The constrictions we construct within,

Conflicts of our own making undone

For we feel lost without them

Built to protect

Built to last

Built to tighten

Built to stifle

Freedom lies beyond our fears,

So they tell us, so we know, yet

Under pressure we struggle,

Sinking beneath the feeble self

Step outside where the crow cries,

Walk between the shadows crept,

Where the sky yawns possibilities

And towers tumble to the ground.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 10, 2017

A Poem a Day (65): Blackbirds

A flash poem written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... several days late, but getting there! 

Blackbirds

Blackbirds cry, shadows streaming across orange-streaked skies,

Scratching verses into the walls of this valley wrapt with echoes –

Their silken patterns criss-cross in shimmering slides of movement,

Flickering dark ghosts between the green, twitching leaves.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 24, 2017

A Poem a Day (64): Live

Another flash poem written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... kicking my lazy writing butt

Live

She made it sound so easy

A four-letter word

A small sound

Sweet in its escape

But a lie upon my wounds.

I can let it lie

Or I can let it die

I can let it fester in my hand –

These things sound so easy

These things I tell myself.

Secrets carried deep inside

Kept in the darkest places

Written in an unseen hand

Never to be read

Never to be spoken

Never to be heard –

These things taste bitter

Borne hard upon the breath.

So make it stop

He made it sound so easy

Another four-letter word

Harsher than the first

Darker than the void

Starker than the pit

In which he found himself –  

But to live was so heavy

And stop so light

That the sun hid itself.

You live, she said

In the corners of my mind

As she read the words aloud

And they listened

And they wept

And they stared down

Where the light couldn’t find

Any sanctuary to rest in

As they buried him
Deep within the ground.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 21, 2017

A poem a Day (63): The burst

Some flash poetry written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... 

The burst

I count the pages

Line the trees

Trace an outline with a pen

Twist the paper til it hurts

Feel the numbness in my hand.

These fingers do the walking

Back and forth and velvet tripping

The never and the ever

And the brilliance in between.

I can spend

I can feel

I can wave this thing called humane

Like a flag in light of something bright;

I can play the fiddle even, see I can,

Watch me smile, watch me cry

Let me paint it in my own particular way

Play this part

Make a sail

Tell the others I can take this boat away

Let me stray

Or let me stay

It’s an easy way to view this choice of mine.

Catch a plane

Hatch a plan

Escape the very things I seek to have –

Is that a thrill?

Am I a seeker?

Did I spill a clue to what I wish today?

Or did I hide it, conceal it, never to be read?

I turn the pages

Catch the light

Watch the drizzle of the ever-dying day

Like spreading ink it splatters into curls

Adrift upon this tide, so turning falls

Back upon itself and this night

As I count the pages

Tear each one out and cast away
The dreams I have yet to live.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 21, 2017

A poem a Day (62): Silence

Some poetry written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... 

Silence

We’ll have nothing left here in the dark,

The cleft between spaces

Shaken in the middle of a sentence,

Left hanging with a hook

Unpicked.

As a fish struggles to unclasp its lip,

Blood splashes;

Words unshapen swim in the air

Unformed, only thought in a momentary

Glance you make,

Often seeing what you want to see,

Yet never noticing the essence

Of things, or me.

While the scales slither silver

And the living twitches its last breath,

I wonder at you,

Here, where we sit in the approaching

Darkness of our lies,

Stripped bare,

Pained upon a grated thing.

I wish to unravel it,

But all I can do is remove the hook

And throw this life back in the water

With a mercy

You used to have.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 21, 2017