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Challenge Number Twenty One: Cliffhangers

Leave us begging for more.

Live long and write muchly,

T & M

#writing challenges #challenge number twenty one

In the Palms of Love

Spoken Word submitted by creepface

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrNI9IO98FE

#creepface #spoken word #submission

Thank you for your challenges. They have been most helpful to my writer's block. :)

We're always happy to help!

Our sincerest apologies for the lack of posts. It's been a hectic time of year. But we're back with a vengeance!

Challenge Number Twenty: Say Hello to You

Greetings writers,

Over time, we change very much. The challenge is to write a scene including present day you and a you from your past. You make pick past you from any point in time you wish.

Live long and write muchly,

T&M

#writing challenges #Challenge Number Twenty

Consumed

submitted by the-inkwells

My lungs were on fire. My whole chest burned and heaved as I shook, unable to breathe. Flames licked at my lungs, causing me to claw at my chest desperately. This was not death, I was sure. Death was supposed to be peaceful. Death was supposed to be quiet. Death didn’t hurt. But this was agony, agony and pain and pure fear as I tried to taste the oxygen on my tongue once more, tried to cling onto whatever was left of me. I soon fell limp, seeing nothing and feeling nothing. There was no fight left in me. The fire had consumed me now, left me for dead. But it wasn't over. At least, it didn't feel that way. There was no light to guide me to Heaven, no Devil to cast me away. There was nothing. Death had taken me. And I was nothing.

#the-inkwells #submission

Snippety Story: Daybreak

Spoken Word piece submitted by creepface

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgC-nq520MM

She is stark naked. Yet, she is beautiful in her own eccentric way. The two birthmarks symmetrically aligned on her left shoulder reminds me of the first time i met her; she wore a red sleeveless polka-dot dress. A small scar on her right knee tells a tale of how she tripped on a night out. These little marks all have a story to it.

I trace her pallid back with my clumsy fingers. This is the only trail my fingers know of. She giggles and squirms in the messy bed sheets, a result of our lovemaking. But she doesn’t stop me. She never does. I watch the way her hair moves as she placidly breathes in. Her short, badly cropped bob is now more like a crows nest: a chaotic, complex infrastructure with a world of its own. Her brittle legs stretch as she lets out a big yawn. Her graceful arms stay in place, one under her head and the other on her side. Simple things like this make me happy. My life is a plain one with no fuss. If you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you. I like it that way. I have the luxury to appreciate a beautiful partner, which a lot of people take for granted. Admiring her body is one of the few things that make me feel whole .I am one lucky person, I think to myself as she faces me with a sleepy smile.

I envelope her with small pecks on her nose, her cheeks, her forehead…. they are my way of saying “Good morning, love”. She scrunches up her nose and mocks disgust. The slightest shadow of a smile is enough to tell me that she like myself, is content. We lay there for a while, just staring at each others’ faces and studying every bump, every curve, and every flaw. I am lost in her, and I intend to stay lost. I feel safe in her sanctuary. I hope she does too.

#spoken word #creepface #submission

scribblingoutofthelabyrinth-blog

Challenge Number Twenty: Woods. Walk through 'em.

Describe yourself [or a character] walking through the woods. The description should reflect your attitude towards nature

Hollow Hallow

Spoken Word piece submitted by creepface

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0TOCteSVXI

Droplets of memories sink into my palms, mixing placidly with warm blood; a by-product of biting my lips repeatedly, relentlessly, restlessly. I conduct a holy ablution with no gods, just a distant voice ringing in the back of my head as I wring my hands: swish swish swish. A trail of my sins settle in the crevices of my frail fingers: a reminder that I am imperfect and mortal. A heavy chain to keep me on the ground occupied by lost souls like me.

#spoken word #creepface #submission

Greetings writers,

We recently received a question (which, admittedly, should have been posted publicly) asking whether or not we accept spoken word pieces.

Of course we do. If you have a spoken word piece that you would like to submit, feel free to send it in written out, or, if you’d like, feel free to send us a video of you performing it. (But please include the written piece with your video)

All writing is welcome!

Live long and write muchly,

T & M

#Letters from the authors #spoken word

Silence is golden

Submitted by the-ghost-in-your-bed

Do you remember the day we painted the Muriel?

Her eyes, dulled, spin around the room to find the gold and red splatters of paint that adorn my walls. I know she remembers, despite her silence. I stopped being offended or surprised a long time ago, it seems almost normal for her to ignore me. That’s mad isn’t it, that I can find the idea of spending the rest of my life without ever hearing her voice so ordinary. I do wonder though. I mean, what happens to a person to mute all the words that sit on their tongue? What happened to her that ripped the language from her calibre? Who stole her voice? It’s odd- no; it’s crazy – that I’ve never heard her speak. Or laugh. That her whispers have never drawn butterflies in my stomach, that I don’t know whether she can sing, not even a little bit. It doesn’t matter. I’ve loved her anyway, as hopelessly, as endlessly, as any man could love such a beautiful girl.

Do you remember the day we first met?

This time she closes her eyes, and in the sound filled world she would’ve sighed then. I think she’s sad, but I have no way of telling. In an audible existence perhaps she’d tell me how much she missed a brother, a friend, a lover. Perhaps she’d shout at me, scream about how much she resents me. Perhaps I’d finally get what I deserve, “I’M LEAVING YOU.”

You looked like you were made of glass.

Her eyes still haven’t opened. For a moment I wonder if it wouldn’t be so terrible to open the door, usher her out into sunlight, let her go free. I won’t, we both know that. My dependence on a horribly sad, lonely mute girl is too great, and she can’t ask for freedom – she can’t even write. Pathetic really, she’s 24. Not as pathetic as me.

Cat got your tongue?

I laugh bitterly at my cruel joke. It’s not like she hears, it’s not like I actually say any of this stuff out loud.

It’s

Not

She’s

Real

Anyway.

Silence is golden.

#the-ghost-in-your-bed #submission

Nostalgia

submitted by intothewavves

Razor The word is sharp; the memory sharper. I can feel it cut my tongue my mind. The blood pours from my lips; paints my cheeks red as roses. I'm ashamed.

#intothewavves #submission

Delusional rambling

submitted by from-your-sleep

I am talking to people who are not there and I am dizzy and spinning and I can’t catch my breath. Maybe I should start looking in drainpipes or climbing the goddamn trees. Lord knows I don’t know where any doors are. The fences are too high or not there at all and I think a squirrel might be drowning in the pool. The gunshots are too quick and close and loud so I know they must be fireworks… Have I checked under all the rocks? What is it I’m looking for again?

The moths are carrying the daffodils but the daffodils want to be with the dragonflies. There needs to be poppies, red and pink and white poppies, but the clouds are too abundant for them to grow.

And I find myself asking, Where am I when I close my eyes because I am certainly not in my bed or tangled in sheets or under the covers; I am elsewhere, under a big tree on a grassy hill and somehow when I open my eyes I am always in my bed. How is that possible? Am I in two places at once?

#from-your-sleep #submission

Because red is less passion and more blood

submitted by burningfairytales

Of course it hurt. I just didn’t say anything.

My best friend forgetting my birthday? Yeah, that hurt a bit. Finding out that the reason he’d forgotten was that he was too busy making out with the girl who’d dedicated her whole life to make me miserable?

Fucking painful.

But it wasn’t just that. The point was, that I was supposed to be his best friend. I was supposed to be the person he could come to, the person he could talk to about anything. His partner in crime. But I was slowly losing this position to her, and that was the worst. I’d always been a very jealous person. I couldn’t stand the idea of not being his most important person anymore, as selfish as it was. I hated knowing that the first person he’d call if he got the job (that I helped him apply for) was her. That, if he’d get the new car he’d been saving for for ages, I wouldn’t be the first person he’d take with him. It would be her.

And I hated her for it.

But okay, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t exactly tell him to stop seeing her. That guy was so obviously head over heels for her, it was a bit pathetic to watch. And he was still my best friend. I kind of wanted him to be happy. Not with her, if at all possible. But I’d take what I could get.

So when he came to me, to ask him pick out a shirt for their date, I smiled and told him to take the light blue one, because he did look good in that thing. I could have told him to go with the red – I’d always hated that shirt; maybe it would make her decide she didn’t want to be seen with a guy that couldn’t dress properly – but I wasn’t cruel. Not that cruel, anyway. I wanted to tell him not to go. I wanted to remind him he’d promised to spend the night watching horror movies with me. We always watched DVDs on a Saturday evening. But he looked so excited, so damn happy at the thought of going to go to the stupid movies with her instead… I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

So yeah, it hurt. But I didn’t say anything.

I wasn’t in love with him or anything. Ew, no. He was like a brother to me. More than that, I guess. He’d always been there, it had always been him and me against the rest oft he world. But now it was him and her, and me, watching from the sidelines. I wasn’t in love with him; I just didn’t like not being his favourite person anymore. I was possessive, and I didn’t like surrendering my place to her. But I couldn’t fight. Not really. He was interested in her. In a way we weren’t interested in each other. And that wasn’t something I could compete with. Just because there would never be a person I could love like that for me, it was unfair to keep expecting him to always stick around.

When he left, I promised to get rid of the mess he’d made in his room by picking random clothes and throwing them all over the place like a teenage girl trying to get ready for her first date. He’d just have to make it up to me with a DVD night some other night.

With a sour look on my face, I finished about twenty minutes later and went home. Why had I been cleaning his mess up, anyway? I didn’t even want him to go. We could have just gone downstairs, watched Freddy and Jason slash each other up and laugh at the horrible special effects. It wouldn’t have made a mess. He had better make this up to me with another movie night. And there had better be popcorn.

It wasn't until the next morning.

It wasn't until the next morning that I heard.

I saw the pictures on the morning news, just as I was pouring milk over my cereal. A car crash. How terribly cliché. It had been going way too fast; apparently both the driver and the front-seat passenger must have been highly intoxicated. They were dead.

He'd never been one for drinking alcohol. Not even when I held a bottle of beer out to him, because it was a hot summer day, and the drink was cold. Didn't like the taste, he said. Didn't like the idea of not being in full control. Oh how very quickly people can change, when they have someone they want to impress.

It had been light blue. His shirt had been light blue. Because it suited his eyes. I never did like seeing him wear red. It was an ugly colour, and it didn't suit him, and damnit all to hell, why hadn't I said anything? Why hadn't he listened to what I hadn't said?

He could have gone with light blue.

#burningfairytales #submission

[Challenge Number Nineteen] The beautiful assumption

submitted by the-ghost-in-your-bed

"Poor girl. I knew they shouldn't have married so young! I told her mother you know. If they'd have listened to some sense she wouldn't be in this mess!"

Ha! As though my age has anything to do with it. I've loved you endlessly since I was 15 and no great age could've prevented your death anyway. I want to tell her I fell in love with you gradually, slowly, perfectly and you reciprocated until your last breath. She assumes, you see, that you - sweet husband - have left me for a floozy at work. Perhaps she figures a secretary in a tight blouse and cheap coral lipstick. I expect she fancies you in a cheap hotel, your suitcase full of dirty shirts and crumpled linens. It insults me because she has no notion of the extent to your fidelity. She has no concept of the faith you had in our life together. There's no way she's envisaging the grave I left daisies at this morning.

I think you'd laugh with me, if you saw the way she rubs her hands together with self righteous glee. But I don't feel much like laughing on my own - I don't feel much like anything on my own - I need you to put her straight. You'd shock her into apologising profusely to your heavily pregnant wife, gracious as ever, irresistible smile on your kind face. You'd tell her it was okay, and I'd agree. After all, we assumed too. Isn't it a prerogative of marriage to assume that'd I'd spend the rest of my life as a wife? No, it happens, we'd smile understandingly, we assumed too. What a beautiful assumption it was.

#the-ghost-in-your-bed #Challenge Number Nineteen #submission

Why?

submitted by from-your-sleep

Why wasn’t I born with the soul of a poet and the eyes of a sailor and the hair of a mermaid?

Why wasn’t I born with shimmering scales like a fish and the golden body of a Nordic goddess?

Why don’t I have raven feathers for hair and skin as pale as the moonlight I love so dearly?

I want to create but why is it I can only destroy myself with these hands God has given me?

I want to be beautiful. Why is it such a struggle to turn an ogre into something of beauty? Why?

#from-your-sleep #submisison #submission

(Insert Title Here)

submitted by Taina

I wish I knew how to tell you to fuck off. I wish I knew how to scoop up every honey dipped word that’s ever dripped from your mouth and shovel them into my dog’s food bowl. I wish I knew how to erase your fingerprints from my body, because taking these two hour baths only leaves me pruned.

On March 21st, around 2:31 am, you told me that we had no future because our pasts were still our presents. And I lied and said, “Then we should move on” and you said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” And never in my life had I bitten the inside of my cheek so hard; never had swallowing my stubbornness been so difficult.

We tried salvaging something along the lines of friendship. We’d tell each other little nothings. “Today I stepped in gum, and the bottom of my shoe wouldn’t stop sticking to the floor.” “I worked at the movie theater all day. My hair smells like popcorn.” They were literal nothings - not the sugared nothings we once whispered to each other while sharing a bed and a pillow. “Today I had a piece of watermelon gum, and it tasted like our first kiss.” “A woman with your eyes ordered popcorn at the movie theater today. It made me wish you were there.”

And now, a year later, you are back because you are lonely. You said, “You are the only one who has ever made me feel wanted. I need you, and I want you to need me, too.” And again, I find myself biting my cheek, gulping down my whispers of, “I do need you. I do.”

This is not my function. Pouring my love into you, crying when you cry, laughing when you laugh.

This is not my function.

You are not mine anymore. You are not here anymore.

So, please. Go.

#tai

Challenge Number Nineteen: The Triggering Town

The Triggering Town is a book written by Richard Hugo. In it, he introduces a range of essays and lectures, all pertaining to writing.

In one chapter titled Assumptions, Hugo writes:

Assumptions lie behind the work of all writers. The writer is unaware of most of them, and many of them are weird. Often the weirder the better. Words love the ridiculous areas of our minds. But silly or solid, assumptions are necessary elements in a successful base of writing operations. It is important that a poet not question his or her assumptions, at least not in the middle of composition. Finish the poem first, then worry, if you have to, about being right or sane.

Whenever I see a town that triggers whatever it is inside me that wants to write a poem, I assume at least one of the following:

Hugo then continues to list a series of assumptions about this town.

The challenge is as follows. Write about assumptions you may or may not make (or have made) about a person, place, or thing. Disregard how insane or unbelievable the assumption may be.

If you need examples of assumptions, feel free to use the following three as inspiration, written by Hugo about his triggering town.

The name of the town is significant and must appear in the title.

On Saturday nights everyone has fun but me. I sit home alone and listen to the radio. I wish I could join the others though I enjoy feeling left out.

There is always a body of water, a sea just out of sight beyond the hill or river running through the town. Outside of town a few miles is a lake that has been the scene of both romance and violence.

Live long and write muchly,

T & M

P.S. Please put "[Challenge Number Nineteen]" in your title when you submit.

#writing challenges #Challenge Number Nineteen

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