photo by Nichole Q Perreault
She lives
but barely
Hiding
always behind painted eyes
and heavy hair
She tucks a strand
over her ear
Runs a finger
down
smoothing
the blackness
down
Fingertip
grazing
her neck
Skin
Brushing skin
Her eyes rise
to yours
glistening
like black opal
She smiles
a smile
that knows
a thousand secrets
You
only care
about
one
© Nichole Q Perreault
A piece of fiction Writing 101:
“And don’t come back in ’til I call you! You hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sammy muttered under her breath.
“Babygirl! I said, do you hear me?!”
“I am not a baby girl!”
“Do. You. Hear me?”
“Yes, Mama. I hear you,” she grumbled.
Sammy let the screen door slam behind her, took a few steps and sat down on the front stoop. She kept to her family’s side of the porch. Mr. Johnson, who lived in the other half of the duplex, didn’t like anyone on his side of the porch, especially little girls.
Family Photo
For my girls:
Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh is this child
this woman
who now walks away from me
Always she is walking away…always, she is going
I wish she had come with a note,
like a present with a ribbon tied ’round her wrist
and a card attached
with the words:
“Just passing through.
I will come to you,
into your body, into your home,
into your wallet, your schedule, your dreams
and most of all
into your heart.
But I will not stay.
I’m just passing through.”
Mom & Grandma
I moved 21 times before I turned 12. That makes 22 different homes and no, my parents weren’t in the military. 22 apartments but only two school systems. So actually, all that moving wasn’t as disruptive as you might think.
I mean, sure, it was draining. And we did reach a point where we stopped unpacking the essentials and lived out of boxes.
Boxes. Most of us live in them already: big boxes with doors and windows, divided into smaller boxes with doors and archways. And we live out of them too: cabinets, closets, drawers and shelves. And we create them: boxes in our minds and walls in our hearts. When I was a kid, some of our boxes just happened to be made out of cardboard.
She sat alone, waiting for the doctor. Or would it be a nurse? A counselor maybe.
God, why don’t they hurry up?
Cold and clammy, she gripped the vinyl table, peeling up her bare legs one at a time and repositioning them. The sound of the paper gown and table cover crinkling and echoing in the otherwise silent room startled her.
I hate it here.
She shook her head in frustration.
I find the letter. Worn. Faded. The words still familiar.
Melodic whispers of another time, another place. Of two faces, close together, flushing beneath a thousand sunlit cherry blossoms. The blushing trees stretching endlessly in every direction, motionless…as if holding their breath, waiting, listening.
His soft, brown eyes already asked the question. Her heart beat out an answer. An answer. An answer.
He held her in his eyes. She touched his cheek. And for a moment they were one. They were forever. All that was, all that would be, colliding in perfect stillness…
Before I finish reading, I slip the yellowing paper back into its envelope.
I close my eyes and find that moment…crystalized, frozen in time…pink petals suspended in the air. No questions. No fear. No doubt.
No words left unspoken. No letters left unanswered.
Just him. And me. And my heart still beating out an answer. An answer. An answer.
As in, I should be…committed…somewhere quiet, soft, with baby pink walls and no sharp objects. Because otherwise I might hurt myself.
What was I thinking?! Signing up for an online 30 day writing class. And just three days in – three days! – they ask for a commitment. Commit to a writing practice, they say. Ummmm…ok? OK. Yeah, sure. Why not? I can do this. It’ll be good for me. And fun..no, yeah, it’ll be fun, I say. 15 minutes day, I say.
And so I do it. I write pretty freely on the topic of favorite songs and I don’t publish it because it’s rubbish and it was just a free write exercise anyway. For me, at least.
Four Generations
Some days, I miss her so much I can almost feel her next to me, in front of me…taking my face in her papery hands and drawing me close to kiss my cheek.
She wasn’t always old, though.
We lived a number places together: the Green House in the hills of Granby, an apartment in Simsbury and then, later, a raised ranch further up the street. Wherever she was felt like home to me.
To my friends, readers and subscribers. I have been a little “stuck” lately in my writing and so, in trying to get “unstuck” I have joined WordPress.com’s Writing 101. As a result, I may be posting more than usual over the next month. My apologies for clogging up the inboxes of my subscribers. I debated not posting this one, but so many of you are my friends and while I write primarily to understand, I also write to be understood. So those of you who are my friends and family: Welcome to 20 minutes (or a bit longer) of my free-wheeling inner dialogue and thanks for being my friend anyway.
So after hours of agonizing over this “free” write assignment, here I am. Writing. How “free” it is, I’m not sure. The only way I can even do this assignment is to tell myself or at least pretend that I’m not going to publish it. Because the moment I think someone is going to read it, all freedom goes out the window. Which I hate. Because, honestly, I like to think of myself as someone who is rather free-spirited and not burdened by what others think. The reality, however, is that I do care what others think.
Lightning Bug 