Tag Archives: inkling writing

Flash Fiction

How to Play Hide and Seek Alone – Samantha Foresyth

How to play hide and seek alone

(On Violent Growing Pains)

 

I hope you find a place where you’re ready to open hearts and throats alike with reckless abandon. Unapologetically.

1- Come back to the ruthlessness because I’ll be here waiting for you. Gums bleeding and incisors ready, the doors will all be locked. Meanwhile you’re spitting back at me, growing past milk teeth and tenderness. Unfasten your jaw like you could turn yourself inside out and hide all of these terrible things down your throat.  It’ll be a mouth like mine you’ll outgrow.

2- You can’t tell where it’s hurting and won’t calm down. Won’t ever stop howling. Jaw open too far, too big when there’s nothing left to swallow. And you’re keeping corpses between your teeth. Pick out the splinters of bone without hesitation. Cough up blood that isn’t yours.

I’ve been waiting to be left behind without a look over your shoulder. Just been chewing off dead skin.

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Poetry

Seasons – Harika Kottakota

You stand in the wheat plains gazing heavenward
Palm rested on the side of a chestnut foal
Cumulus drifted slowly, soft heels dug into clods
Shoots brushed cranberry cheeks, crickets whispered
Their secret melody under the settling dusk
Gold waves to rickety barn, sides infested with ivy
Dismantled windmill blades sprinkled in dew drops,
Seedlings of those scary thunder nights,
Lay glistening like a second sun on muddy sky
Faded fence skewed like an ice skater’s blade
Scraping joyously on frozen lakes under Moon lamps
Waking to Mother’s oven and Grace’s doll house
Father rapt in daily news of some faraway place
Hopping over creaky floorboards, storing static
Against wool carpets and zapping Grandma’s knitting
Vision wrinkling in warm shades like mangoes, oranges
Frisbees dropped, under hammocks or crude tents
Saving scrapbooks from attic cobwebs–pasts, before pasts
Taping our precious scribbles religiously until our
White ceilings converted to memorial mosaics
Dragonflies and Vs of geese enchanted our daydreams
Off to some Everest or Yosemite where adventure lurks
Leather-bound journals lined tables clasping memories
And reminders to future selves to always hold dear
Your heart’s home: acres of beginnings, middles, and ends
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Poetry

Oh, Mother Nature – Karlee Sanders

the sky cries for you, my dear. when you’re sad, so are the clouds.

the sun shines for your effervescent smile.
flowers lift their heads as you walk by.
you’re one with nature, it’s like they look up to you.
or maybe it is you.
controlling them in ways that are impossible to understand.
not with your mind, but your heart.
yes, oh yes.
I can see it in your eyes.
such beauty could only be created by the most darling thing of all,
you.
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Poetry

Human Nature – Ivy Juniper Manchester

“Even the mighty succumb to human nature.
There is no beating the beating of our hearts,
No defeating the monsters we bred,
The demons we define as thoughts,
The poisonous lies dipped in honey
Which we so arrogantly accept as honesty.
We cannot overcome that which makes us strong,
Simply because we believe it makes us weak.
There is no denying emotion that we feel so fervently,
Simply because we fear its strength.
We cannot run from ourselves,
And we cannot be brave if we fear ourselves.
Despite the notion that we are invincible,
We cannot defeat ourselves.”

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Prose, Prosetry

Aerial Views – Matt Grydzuk

And so you were skipping stones across ponds

“Every time I walk past a balcony I think of throwing my phone over it.”

Same, but I think of throwing myself over

For just a split second, then realize it’d be too up-front

Too gaudy, and then it sort of fizzles out


And so you were skipping stones across rivers

Playing records backwards to get the real meaning

“I think maybe I should leave,” you said

But I could never understand how someone could fit

That much sadness in such a small thing


And so you were skipping stones across canals

“They’re all just intersecting lines,” you said

We’re all just intersecting lines

You followed up with

I think that maybe people don’t know you

As well as they should have


And so you were skipping stones across lakes

Hands tied behind your back, you were writhing

“I don’t want to be here!” You said, taken out of context

Were placed anywhere else

You didn’t know how to address matters outside of literal meaning

So you just stopped talking

So you just stopped addressing the bleach stains


And so you were skipping stones across deltas

Frozen over for a long while, now thawed, you turned to me and said

“I think this is where depression stops and starts”

And so I am standing at the edge of the balcony

For the first time thinking of throwing something else over

Thinking, “Maybe”

“Just maybe, one can make a monologue out of anything.”


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Prose

Worldly Pleasures – Karlee Sanders

She filled her life with worldly pleasures. She knew she was frequently disturbing the lives of cautious do-gooders, but she didn’t care. And although she didn’t care, she would send them letters purposely laced with the scent of her vodka telling just how “sorry she was for accidentally running over their mailbox” or how “she didn’t mean to slash their tires, she thought it was her ex’s truck, naturally anybody could make that mistake.” All in sarcasm, you could presume. She was carefree and having the time of her life even when everything seemed to be going wrong. Obviously, I knew her well. She was my best friend; and those were her glory years.
Now, I call her at work and she complains to me how her students are too “wild” and it makes me chuckle because all of that alcohol she indulged in just might have erased the memories of her crazy days. She was a teenager once.

Remember that your teachers were once the people you are now. They may seem like fuddy-duddies and old hags, but if you look in their eyes, you might just see the same teen spirit lurking in your eyes, in theirs. She filled her life with worldly pleasures. She knew she was frequently disturbing the lives of cautious do-gooders, but she didn’t care. And although she didn’t care, she would send them letters purposely laced with the scent of her vodka telling just how “sorry she was for accidentally running over their mailbox” or how “she didn’t mean to slash their tires, she thought it was her ex’s truck, naturally anybody could make that mistake.” All in sarcasm, you could presume. She was carefree and having the time of her life even when everything seemed to be going wrong. Obviously, I knew her well. She was my best friend; and those were her glory years. 

Now, I call her at work and she complains to me how her students are too “wild” and it makes me chuckle because all of that alcohol she indulged in just might have erased the memories of her crazy days. She was a teenager once.
Remember that your teachers were once the people you are now. They may seem like fuddy-duddies and old hags, but if you look in their eyes, you might just see the same teen spirit lurking in your eyes, in theirs.
She filled her life with worldly pleasures. She knew she was frequently disturbing the lives of cautious do-gooders, but she didn’t care. And although she didn’t care, she would send them letters purposely laced with the scent of her vodka telling just how “sorry she was for accidentally running over their mailbox” or how “she didn’t mean to slash their tires, she thought it was her ex’s truck, naturally anybody could make that mistake.” All in sarcasm, you could presume. She was carefree and having the time of her life even when everything seemed to be going wrong. Obviously, I knew her well. She was my best friend; and those were her glory years. Now, I call her at work and she complains to me how her students are too “wild” and it makes me chuckle because all of that alcohol she indulged in just might have erased the memories of her crazy days. She was a teenager once. Remember that your teachers were once the people you are now. They may seem like fuddy-duddies and old hags, but if you look in their eyes, you might just see the same teen spirit lurking in your eyes, in theirs.
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Prosetry

Nevadian Botaty (The Ego) – Matt Grydzuk

The other day I started a small garden chiefly of plants I could use
Built from those one-dollar Target herb thingies and anyways
I thought to myself how interesting to have such a straight-forward existence
To be consumed, to only have purpose
Never filling in the blank spots never
Playing with narrative structure just
Existing in ground, as part of the earth, in part of something more amazing,
synthetically.

How interesting not to be multipurpose
And to consume chiefly; the product of progress amalgamated
To the point where it’s taboo
I think about these matters while doing simple things like watering basil
Like constructing culinary masterpieces
Perhaps wanting to exist and existing are two halves of the same maybe there is no purpose
But to be consumed by something we’d
Never see coming
And when a friend of a friend reminds me that we are all mortal
I start to think that maybe stagnating is congruent with plant life
Or plant food
I think about these things while watering basil.

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