I Cannot Be

 

I lean, breathless, into another’s arms.

I am not comforted.

Knowing I should feel loved as I’m wrapped in waiting arms carves desperation more deeply into me.

My life ebbs away, sailing from the shifting shore of my body like a piece of driftwood floating out to sea.

I’m supposed to be grateful, appreciating time, when each moment my body weakens. Each second strips me of a healthy joint, robs me of another heartbeat.

I cannot be any of the things they want me to be. I cling to self-pity when all I want to do is let go.

 

 

July 15 Prompt: Life (In 99 words – no more, no less – write a story about a breathless moment. Write about life.)

Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch

Crumbling

 

Is this sickness?

Lack of light? Solid darkness? Under canopies of lovely trees, thick with glossy emerald leaves, where sunshine cannot reach?

On the ground. Broken bits of self. Hazy eyes, unfocused from pain—grime on windows to the soul.

Shatter me.

Break apart the clumps of soil. Dig into dirt with naked hands, crumbling until fingernails become half moons of filth.

Till the earth of who I was. From this mangled mass of roots, pebbles, and pain, let something whole and healthy break through the ground. Let something beautiful grow.

This wishing. This futile hope.

Is this sickness?

 

 

June 24 Prompt: Dirt (In 99 words – no more, no less – write a story about dirt.)

Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch