in 1000 Stories

peace, history – 56/1000

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“Do you want to keep this?” I asked, holding the box of Christmas ornaments.

“No, no room.”

I decided to keep it.

“What about these family photos?”

“No, it’s not like I’m ever going to look at them again. I probably forgot half the people in there!”

I keep that box, too.

I’m the only one who wants to hold on to our family, keep some mementos from our lives, our history.

I weep as my parents fill the dumpster with my past.

Now we have no family home.

We just have the memories so sharp they cut like glass.… Read the rest

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a spot of revenge – 55/1000

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“The first time I saw it I was brushing my hair after a shower. I turned just so and saw in the mirror the dark spot on my shoulder.

“My husband said it looked like a bruise, but it just kept getting worse.

“The bruise turned into a boil, and then that was lanced, so I had an open wound. Then they had to care for it daily, and I lived for months in this constant agony until my flesh just started rotting away.”

“My God, do you know what did it?”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t have cheated on my husband.”… Read the rest

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“Everyone wants to give a writer the perfect notebook. Over the years I’ve acquired stacks: one is leather, a rope of Rapunzel’s hair braids its spine. Another is tree-friendly, its paper reincarnated from diaries of poets now graying in cubicles. One is small and black as a funeral dress, its pages lined like the hands of a widow. There’s even a furry blue one that looks like a shag rug or a monster that would hide beneath it—and I wonder why? For every blown-out candle, every Mazel Tov, every turn of the tassel, we are handed what a writer dreads

… Read the rest
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the bravest – 54/1000

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It’s hard to find butterflies here, or even flies.

There are bees, though, they’re always hanging around Washington Square Park, buzzing around the sticky sweet juice dripping down your hand from the popsicle you got at the ice-cream stand.

You block out the sound of traffic and listen to the rasta drum beats and smell the weed that’s everywhere now, and the whole time this warm breeze of city filth swirls around you.

In the middle of the biggest city you find a flower ridiculously alive, crawling from a crack in the concrete.

It’s the bravest thing you’ve ever seen.… Read the rest

in 1000 Stories

love bomb – 53/1000

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My home reeks of flowers, and not in a good way.

There are just too many. Bouquet after bouquet that arrived like clockwork at ten every morning with a new way to say “I love you.”

I do love flowers, and I love the diamonds he gives me; I love the trips we take on his private jet to glittering cities like Paris and Tokyo.

But the flowers, they’re suffocating me.

It’s too much.

It’s too much to feel like you’re the center of someone’s world, too much to feel like someone’s happiness depends on you.

I don’t want this.… Read the rest

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what a world – 52/1000

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I wasn’t made for this. For these bars of hours that lock me in from one end of the day to the other.

I was made for ink and pages and thousands of quiet hours alone indoors with no one and nothing to bother me.

The world does this to us.

It puts us in cages that we’re not fit for, it locks up everything we have to give.

Nowadays my greatest dream isn’t publishing, it’s disappearing.

It’s buying land and building houses with friends so we can leave the world behind.

I won’t miss it, not even a bit.… Read the rest

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battle’s end – 51/1000

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It felt like my guts had been turned into churning lava, and I could feel things I knew I wasn’t supposed to be able to feel.

So this is what it feels like when the breeze hits your organs.

So this is what it feels like when you’re dying.

The loud clashes, clangs, shouts, and screams were my world in the darkness, because I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

I couldn’t keep watching my soldiers fall.

Then someone knelt beside me.

Lieutenant Robinson.

“Is it bad?” he asked.

“This will be the end of me.”

“But you fought so well.”… Read the rest

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the puppeteer – 50/1000

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Who do you think you are?

I get asked that question all the time, by me, by the other, little me that lives inside my head.

She’s the one who’s in control, even though you can’t see her.

She’s pulling the strings, and I’m just along for the ride.

I wish someday I’ll be able to take myself back, and be myself again, but for now, I’ll let her rule my roost. I’ll let her take the wheel.

The truth is, I have never made good choices for myself.

I’m always thinking life’s not fair, and I’m always hurting myself.… Read the rest