#chocolatevinegar

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

Prompt for 6/29/15

Write something inspired by a song you hate,

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

prompt: describe a smell

date for: 6/22/15 (I’m late)

By: Kelyn

As I packed my bags and boxes I thought about a recent conversation I had had about how everyone's homes smell different, how we're all immune to the smell we live in.  I sat on my childhood bed and wondered what my new apartment would smell like and if the smell of my old home would change when I left. Would it just smell like my parents? I hoped not, my dad used too much cologne and my mom loved burnt popcorn:  I wondered if I could pin point the smell that would remind me of this place, of growing up.  I wanted to remember old oil and over cooked fried chicken. I wanted to remember how the air was deluded with the scent of pancakes on Saturday and bacon on Sunday's. I wanted to remember 11 scoops of coffee for one pot and how strong it was. It wasn't just about food though.  I would miss wet dog and hair dye, because there was three of us coloring our hair every month.i would miss smoke sinking in through an open window because no one was allowed to smoke in the house.  I would miss the smell of the summer night air on the nights my father can home from driving and we had to help him clean his car because he was exhausted and my sisters and I were wide eyed kids who never ran out of energy.  Most of all I would miss the brand of bar of soap my parents bought as a kid. I would wake up smelling it and then use it myself before bed. It started and ended my days.  I could hear my mother calling me from the living room downstairs. She wanted to know if I had the last box and I was almost tempted to say no so I could linger a little longer.  Home smelt like fried chicken and cheap soap and I knew the stagnant air of my new apartment would just drive me mad.  I went to the bathroom and dug to the very back of the cabinet hoping for a piece of childhood but there was nothing. I sighed and picked up the box and went down stairs.  I wondered if that was the lay time home would ever smell like the pieces of myself I left behind. I wondered how something could smell like too much cologne, burnt popcorn, old oil, fried chicken, strong coffee, wet dog, hair dye, smoke, whatever was in the air the nights my sister and I ran back and forth from our driveway and the kitchen at 2am, and finally cheap soap all at once and how all of those things could make my favorite smell.  I wondered what my new home would smell like and if it would be as much of a weird mix and if it would put a tear in my heart when I left like my last home was doing now. I knew that within the first couple weeks of settling in I would have to come back under the guise of a visit just the breath the memories into my lungs through my nose. I wondered if that would be enough.

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

Prompt for 6/22/15

Describe a smell.

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

Prompt: Incorporate the sea, literal or not.

Date: 6/16/2015

By: Kelyn

Breathing is such a weird concept. It's something you do without having to think about it. That was how I felt about you.  I tried to block out the broken dishes and nights is sit on the bathroom floor when you were careless because you knew it wasn't possible for me to care less.  Maybe I should have learned to hold my breath longer, it would have been a good coping technique for the nights you just didn't come home and I wondered what you were thinking when we stood in front of our friends and family and said this was something worth keeping.  I was no naive back then. The first time I tasted blood like a rusty dagger through my lungs I realized you weren't the air I was breathing but the salt water from the ocean we had went to every summer as teenagers. I didn't realize I was drowning because no one told me having water in my lungs would feel like love, not real love but the love everyone tells you is beautiful when it's just obsessive and stifling.  You were somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic while I was just wading in the sand. When I realized the tide wasn't actually a tsunami and couldn't pull me in walking away was easy.  I left my ring on your night stand with a note that didn't say much but still said everything.  "Tides change."  You were salt water in my lungs that already stung from smoke. You thought id be easy to drown and my lifeless body would be yours to own. You were once a freezing ocean that numbed my lips and shut me down internally bringing my body temp lower and lower but you never got my final breath. Darling, you were the sea but I, I was the moon.

 You underestimated me because you never quite saw all of me. You saw the sides that were easy to manipulate, I could call you a lot of things but to sum you up, careless. You forgot that the moon changes and even though my crescents were beautiful they were not all I was.

 You used to tell me about nature and how one day we would move to Alaska and live off the land. He ugliness is a man made thing and you were above it. I fanaticized about you getting bitten by a poisonous snake bite you were out picking berries and grumbling on about society.

 I wonder if you ever made it there, then I remember I don’t care.

 My mother had scolded me through our courtship and marriage about being the bigger person. Like I was just supposed to absorb your attempts to destroy me because you didn’t know better. I wanted to scream FUCK THAT, but it was more of a quiet nod of my head over coffee.

 I realized I was bigger, bigger than a grain of sand, bigger than a sea shell, I was the moon baby, and you were the sea. I controlled you, you didn’t control me. Not any longer at least.

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

Prompt for 6/15/15

Incorporate the sea, literal or not.

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

Prompt:  Imitate an author’s style.

Date For: 6/8/15 (posted 6/9/15)

By: Kelyn

Having bipolar disorder is like having a super power, you see, mania isn't just a state of hyper happiness. Sometimes I become a tiny volcano ready to destroy anyone in my path, my parents are Pompeii.  My sister has been burned so many times, as soon as she sees the look that she knows all to well on my face she goes from the most beautiful shade of purple anyone has ever seen, (the type of purple only worn by royalty) too a muted ashy grey.  When you have bipolar disorder you don't know what word, action, scene, color, memory, etc will trigger what side of you. It should be easy, coffee - mania, scissors - depression, having to defend my life choices and the things that were not choices - anger mania. But sometimes telling a joke that isn't funny, stuttering when I'm speaking publicly, listening to my favorite album, having my sister ask what I'm wearing - that can all be triggering too:  Not only can I burn people, change colors, and be over sensitive I also have the ability to make people disappear. Anyone who's known me on a personal level for longer than a month knows the worst thing you can do to me is just disappear without a word. It happens so often and I panic when I don't hear from someone at least once a day. I see my friends all planning their get aways. Because they don't actually have to deal with me if they don't want to, there is no family obligation. I imagine all of my friends who have probably never spoken to each other plotting over a map and dates and pretty phrases that they can say to me to help slip away, something small and subtle that they think I wouldn't notice perhaps goodbye instead of good night. The jokes on them though, when you have bipolar disorder you learn to break down every word and the tone that you assume is there over text.  I stay up until the bright morning hours and wonder if you actually need to be super to have super powers. Super implies something good, and good is something I've never been good at. What do you call the atypical things you do when they are detrimental?  What do you call yourself when you were a kid and you could feel bugs crawling all over you and you promised you would use your invisible bug power for good but now all your powers do is wear people down and make them leave?  Maybe I am a hero for all the days I convince myself I am a villain but I continue to.breathe. Maybe I am good for the moments I reach out and my finger tips don't feel like jagged glass across the people I love's skin. Maybe the wolf In sheeps clothing just really wants to be a sheep.  At the end of my story, of our story, of anyone's story I've mead a cameo in I don't know what I'll be, and I'm coming to terms with the fact that that isn't mine to decide. I see myself as the hero, the villain, the love interest, the plot device, the background character every time I open a page by starting a new conversation and somehow it's enough just to be written about, kindly or not

 (Neil Hilborn)

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

Prompt: Imitate an author’s style.

Date: 6/8/2015

By: Elise

Let me tell you about these past few lousy nights. Or maybe just last night. It’s been a while since I haven’t felt not yellow, so I took the time out of my oh so busy schedule to pen in some time to go horse around down in the city. I don’t know what I intended to do. Really. I hadn’t thought it out or planned anything. But I wanted to get out of this depressing house, so I did.

I spent most of the time walking around. I didn’t bother looking into any stores. Most of them are those phony, big chain stores that you never really see being built. These stores, they just appear, see? Have you ever seen any of those stores in the process of being built? No.

Anyway. I walked by these phony stores without bothering to look into them. I did, however, stop for a pack of cigarettes at one of those little stores on the corner. Well, I tried at least. The sonuvabitch behind the counter didn’t want to give me the goddamn cigarettes. She said I looked far too young to be eighteen. Since when did they start caring? Don’t those goddamn phonies only care about money? She gave me a helluva hard time about it, too.

So here I was, standing outside this little cornerstore, right? And the few dollars I meant to use for the cigarette were burning in my pocket. They felt stupid now, like all their purpose was lost the moment that sonuvabitch asked for my ID.  Maybe if I’d lied a little better, she woulda given them to me. I told the girl — her name tag said her name was Susan — that a little damn cigarette every now and then never killed nobody. She said that they actually did, and that killed me. Really. That old Susie sure did give me a hard time. She’s a nice girl, I bet. But, goddamn, did she make me feel depressed.

Anyway. I was outside this cornerstore and I was having a lousy time when I was supposed to be having a terrific time. And I still had these damn dollars in my pocket. They were practically burning a hole through my coat. I had to get rid of the bastards before I ended up with blisters. So I started walking down this street again. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was going somewhere. And I still wasn’t paying attention to the shops. I wasn’t paying attention to all the people around me either. Which meant I bumped into somebody. And I woulda called them a sonuvabitch, had the not been one of the nicest guys I have ever known. This kid, right? He woulda taken the coat off his shoulders and given it to ya if you needed it. He’d practically give you his skin. But that won’t be necessary, I suppose. I wanted to stop and have a conversation with him, with old Adam, see if he wanted to horse around like the old days. That woulda been terrific. But the poor kid had a date with his girlfriend. She’s pretty, but she’s a lousy girlfriend, a real bore, never one for kidding around. The bastard coulda gotten himself a nice girl who would never make him as goddamn depressed as he is now, but I guess just cause you’re nice, doesn’t mean you’ve got a set of sense on ya. So I let him go. I told the sonuvabitch to have a terrific time with his old girl. God knows he won’t.

And I guess you’d want to hear the rest of it, right? How I was depressed and bored the whole night, until some miracle turnaround, right? Well. I hate to break it to you, but I had a terrible time. And I’m real sore about it too. Listen. If you want a good story, if you want one that doesn’t depress ya, for chrissake, watch a Disney film. Don’t ask an actual person.

JD Salinger

[chocolatevinegar-blog]

Prompt for 8/6/15

Imitate an author’s style.