#natiwritesthings

[comingoutasawriter]

Violence as a Vice

A part of me wishes I could be one of those full force pacifists with a deep disgust of violence that shakes their bones.

But I'm not.

I've found deep satisfaction in taking a swing, feeling that connection of flesh and bone at bruising force. The sensation of diggin in your nails so deep as to draw blood.

Dragging the knife down with a fury that could freeze oceans, weeping for mercy, and ready to shatter. The thought of it makes something in me sing where I should cringe.

I dream of peace, and cling to that. There is a sort of lurid charm to violence, but like all vices it must be tempered before it corrupts.

Understanding violence and using that to fuel your desire for peace. Im content with that. Someone more willing to extend a hand up than pulling back a fist to swing. Never attack someone who is helpless to retaliate. As always it's about the power. The trauma. A battle between warriors is so different from backhanding a child.

I'm finding that most interactions can be governed by the same principals. Good sex, good magic, and a good fight all involve consent and protection. To forego either shifts the balance of power and the repercussions.

The goal should always be peace. No casualties. No damage. No pain. Today that is a fantasy, but if we cannot make a perfect world even in our dreams then how can we remember what we're working for?

[comingoutasawriter]

Writer’s Regimen Day 19

RIFF WORD:                 cast  

Cast me off like An Abe incoln top hat Fly through the air like a saw Break his leg with my teeth Casting call Come one come all Experience the wonder Of a grain of rice Stuck and itching Feel it How real are you? Can you catch a fish like me Cast out to come back With scales on the hook I'm tired So damned tired Let me belong to the sleeping caste I'll learn in my dreams Build you some realities Some new pains to sing about Oh cry me a river.

[comingoutasawriter]

Writer’s Regimen Day 15

TODAY’S RIFF WORD:                  vent

You know what realy grinds my gears? Limitations. Not that gym nut bullshit about 'pushing your limits' and that nonsense. I know what my body can take thank you very much. I'm talking about the stupid as all fuck limits people put on things.

How much can you love someone? Infinitely. Love is not a limited resource. I can dig both the cuties in the love triangle equally. Loving one does not negate my love for the other. Polyamory could totally be a thing you know? Why must we limit abstract concepts like love and endless cheese.

I am not limited by the labels I choose to define myself with. It's when other's label me, pigeon hole me into being just this one little thing that iam limited. Sometimes I'm bi, sometimes I'm ace. I am a feminist and a romantic and want to be a mother and want to get a doctorate in my field. None of these negates the other. Just is a word that should only be used in reference to justice. I am never just unless I am being fair.

I label me. You do not get to limit me. You do not get to put me in a thrice damned box to make your life easier. You don' get to dilute me into some basic one word concept for your simplistic pleasure.

End Rant.

[comingoutasawriter]

Writer’s Regimen Day 14

TODAY'S RIFF WORD:                  bristle  

 A paint brush makes rivers

Blue on a brown mud with

Pine needles scattered everywhere

Like a hairbrush. Do I look like I use one?

Please, get out. Get over it.

He’s like a hedge hog that one. 

Got the spines for it. Drop the 

mortar shells on placid lakes,

He bristles, a dog, or a cat 

he did something wrong and he knows

how to get out and over the hurdles. 

I can feel the rough

uncensored breathing on my for

head west. Go chase the sun.

[comingoutasawriter]

Writer’s Regimen Day 13

Prompt:

Gossip -- Compose a scene where two characters create a fictional character. Have them talk about this person and have the character become an important part of the plot. This is something people do everyday-but have the conversation reveal something intimate about the people involved in the conversation. 

“Did you see him last night?” Maribel whispered over her café con leche.

“No?” Mimi replied taking a dainty sip of her green tea. “What happened?”

“Well, there was this party, and he was like totally grinding up on this puta with giant chonga earings.”

“No!”

“Wait, it gets better, so I’m over by the bar doing some shots with Laidi and Janelle, just some rum to get us all nice and warm, when we see him doing a shot of tequila.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“Out of another chica’s belly button.”

“Ohhhh, Mercy is going to be so pissed.”

“Going to be? Mija she rained some hell fire down on that boy. Not even Papa Dios could save him.”

“What happened?”

“Well.....” Maribel paused, taking a long sip of her cafée con leche, peeking at Mimi over the rim. 

“Oh come on!” Mimi jutted her lip out in a pout.

“Don’t pout, your lips are too thin. Parece un pescado.” Maribel told her wiping off the mild foam mustache.

“I’m not sure what that means, but I know it was rude. Now tell me what happened with Mercy!”

“Fine fine! So Mercy shows up, like completely hammered. I mean this girl is so gone. She’s all clinging on her amigas when she stumbles in in those fricken heels. You know the ones I’, talking about.”

“Yeah. The ones you always borrow from her?”

“They look better on me. Anyways, she sees him doing body shots off this girl and fricken looses it! She gets over to him and starts whacking him with her purse. Calling him all sorts of things. She starts chanting this voodoo, santeria type thing.”

“You know my aunt, the one from the Phillipines, she’s some kind of witch. I don’t play with that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, yo se Mimi. I got the hell out of there fast. She looked like she was about to burn the whole place down and everyone there was already like, more liquor than anything.”

“Have you heard from her since?”

“Well....see that’s where things get kinda weird...”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know Mimi.” Maribel looked down at her tostada, picking at the crust of it. “It’s kinda personal.”

“Oh don’t leave me hanging Maribel!” Mimi pleaded. Her slim eyes going round like a little puppy dog.

“Well, long story short. We woke up together the next morning.” 

[comingoutasawriter]

Writer’s Regimen Day 11

TODAY'S RIFF WORD:                  contour

Contoured. A lamp’s focused light

the curve of a glass as it

pours down my throat.

A tongue of asphalt trips 

a river of gasoline slides down      iridescent

 following the plane of the bike.

Cheekbones run up to your ears

the slide of your chin matches your

Mouth open around a hot dog.

The way an ambulance sounds

grow and shrink and everywhere

All at once. It’s gone.

[comingoutasawriter]

Writer’s Regimen Day 10

Prompt:

Expectations – Margaret Atwood once wrote, “You fit into me / like a hook into an eye.“Likewise, an old joke goes, "Your teeth are like stars. They come out at night."These two metaphors begin with a familiar idea and hit the reader with something entirely unexpected that reveals a lot about the emotion. See if you can compose a narrative in which the premise is familiar to the reader, but the outcome is surprising and revelatory of the tension that had been building throughout the story.

I sat at the base of the stairs, my shoe fell of at the top step and i kicked off the other one as I raced down. It was only once I reached the bottom that I realized no one was following me. I had lost him in one of the forked passages. I went right and he went left. My breath caught in the night air, a puff of smoke. Fire burned in my chest, tight from the running and the bodice of the dress. I needed to catch my breath before he caught me. I had to get back home before-

The clock above me struck like a canon. The sound tore through me. It couldn’t be midnight, not yet. I gathered my skirts and ran down the road. The carriage was gone, only a dog and an old mare standing in the ruins of a massive pumpkin crawling with mice. I threw my bare foot into the stirrup and lifted myself into the cheap saddle. I kicked her into motion, the dog following close on our heels.

I heard a shout behind us, and the clomp of hooves rumbling on the cobbled road behind me. I pulled off the road leading my mare into the woods. With any luck I’d lose him in the trees.

Stop! I heard the shout behind me. He was following me into the trees. The clock struck it's final tone and the glamour on my dress wore off. My ballgown was once again a simple skirt and shirtsleeves, much to my relief. They were easier to ride in.

I sent the dog going off in another direction, hoping to throw him off as I headed towards the creek. The sound of hooves behind me had grown softer as the shadows deepened in the full moon light. I raced through the trees, sending a prayer to whatever god would listen.

Someone heard me, I took my mare through the stream almost all the way up to the gate of my house having lost my pursuer. I climbed off the mare and walked her to the stable, setting her up. After stepping through the door I heard my step mother’s carriage pull up. I shot up the stairs to my tiny attic room, stripped off my clothes and jumped into bed. The thin covers did little to protect me against the chill, but the fire in my stove had already burned down to cinders and there was no time to re light it.

I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing as I heard my step mother climb the stairs. She opened the door a crack, just enough to check to see that I was there and sleeping. Satisfied she closed the door and plodded back down. I could hear them giggling and yelping about the ball. How handsome the prince was, and how good the food was. 

Once they had gone to bed I opened the window and called out softly into the night. “It’s done.”

In a glittering swirl of golden light a woman appeared in my room. My fairy godmother had arrived. 

“Cutting it a little close don’t you think?” she put a slim white hand on her hip. She was tall, elegant, with big violet eyes and silver hair cascading down over gossamer dragon fly wings.

“I didn’t expect him to follow me.” my heart was still pounding. 

“Did you get it?” the glimmer in her eyes told me she knew the answer.

I fished the pendant out of my shift, the silver chain cool on my neck. “I got it. Snagged it right off his neck when he kissed me.”

My godmother smiled. “Good job Ella. Now we can truly begin.”

[comingoutasawriter]

Writer’s Regimen Day 9

Prompt:

Calloused Thought – Chose a texture and consider everything it brings to mind. Smooth teeth and marble; rough glass and pavement; furry rabbits and blankets. List as many things that come to mind. You may start with single concepts and objects and then expand to places and memories. Then look to see how some connect and others negate each other. Create a piece inspired by your mental map of a particular texture.

Leather, soft and smooth like weathered skin. It’s a rough luxury worn like armor, or draped about you like an old blanket. The weight is familiar and reasuring, the smell is your dad’s cologne mixed with burned tobacco and exhaust fumes. The feel of a bike between your legs growling as you rev the throttle. Wind hits your face forcing it’s way up your nose and in the cracks of your glasses to make your eyes water as gravity hangs on you at the apex of a sharp turn. Can you feel it?

We shot down the ribbon of asphalt, the wind drowning out the sound of cicadas whining in the heat of high summer. The summer solstice came and went taking moments of sunlight with it as we drifted further from it. But for right now it was still light at six thirty, and we had enough time to take a ride after work.

The bar was an open shack sitting back from the road with palm thatched roofs covering some graffiti’d tables open to the air. A cold beer chased with some grease dripping french fries was our goal. We were surrounded by people in studded leather vests and skull caps enjoying their beers and like minded company. We waved to a few people we recognized, and they returned it with a smile or a salute. They were all pretty amicable people. Loud, but amicable.

We snagged a tall table just big enough to set our beers on. I traced the graffiti, mostly names and a few crude doodlings scratched in with blunt pens or keys. Some were so worn down you could barely read them. ‘Forever’ was scratched in several places. Some were worn down so that you could only read 'ever’. It was nice to be surrounded by so much sound and not have to contribute to it. We watched people interacting, hands held across the table, seeing the way shadows played as the sun sank lower.

A few people we knew dropped by and said hi. They chatted with us about the weather, those damned mosquitoes, and what we thought about the Large Hadron collider in Lucerne. With an hour of daylight left we excused ourselves. Helmets on, vests unzipped to flap in the wind as we raced back down the curling tongue of asphalt back home. Back to the suburban cleanliness where people in suits treated us with a resigned visciousness.