The Writer Rin

Stories, poetry, musings

[thewriterrin]

All of It Was Love

My mother and I got into an argument today. It happened in the morning, and it began so subtly that warning bells didn’t go off in my head telling me to back off until the damage had been done. Later in the evening, we were in the kitchen making dinner in silence. I placed the salt within her reach. I moved things out of her way. I rinsed the blender when she was done using it. And I passed her…

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[thewriterrin]

The Space Between “My” and “Friend”

Source: Gabriela Gutierrez on Unsplash None of us knew about Marianne until the funeral. Grandma was dead, having outlived her in-laws, her son, and his wife. She’d lived a full life, cliche as it was to say.   She’d grown so old and withered that we often forgot she’d been young once. She’d been alive for so long she couldn’t remember parts of her life from the beginning, from the…

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[thewriterrin]

How to Make a Marriage Go Up in Flames

Image by Jan Theodore via Unsplash Here’s how to make a marriage go up in flames. You need to have thrown enough bottles of wine. Of champagne. Of spirits, at the wall, on the floor during arguments. Let them permeate through the layers of your home. I don’t know that it makes things more effective, but it sounds like a darkly romantic concept. You need to be sure of the end of your love for…

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[thewriterrin]

The Man With Cardboard Between His Teeth (incomplete)

Blue was addicted to nicotine. He couldn’t live without the stuff, but as he leaned against the wall outside the building of, coolly smoking his ninth cigarette (tenth, if you counted the one he chain smoked before leaving the house that morning, which he didn’t) of the day, he didn’t look like an addict. As he smoked he contemplated his shoes absently. Then, as if remembering something, he…

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[thewriterrin]

It's Going to Be Alright, Mother

It’s Going to Be Alright, Mother

Image by Gregoire Jeanneau via Unsplash A woman is seated at a table with a man and a child. She feels out of place. She feels like she would rather be anywhere other than where she is, playing a role she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how she fits into any of it. The man is charming, the child well-mannered. They make her uncomfortable. She is wary. She waits for her role to become clear. They…

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[thewriterrin]

I Wonder What They'll Say When I'm Gone

I Wonder What They’ll Say When I’m Gone

I wonder what the people who know me would say when I’m gone. That girl, Rin, she was a genius. She was funny. She was stunning. No, she wasn’t stunning but she had a mind like a razor. Sharp. She wasn’t a genius but she had talent. She never realized her full potential. She could have been a contender. She never could figure out how to overcome herself. When she laughed it made you smile. She…

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[thewriterrin]

There's Something About Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski

There’s Something About Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski

This guy. Lately I’ve been thinking about Stanley Kowalski, or rather, Marlon Brando’s portrayal of him. The first time I saw Elia Kazan’s 1951 adaptation of Tennessee William’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” I didn’t think much of it. And yet, long after the experience I couldn’t get it out of my head. Was it the story, which felt years ahead of its time? Was it the characters, who were so flawed,…

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[thewriterrin]

Introspection: Questions (Part 2)

So what if people know you’re imperfect? So what if they know you’re insecure, and that you hate your nose so much that you’ve imagined bashing it in so you could get reconstructive surgery? But only on really bad days. Or that you’ve wanted to be someone else many, many times? A brand new person, cobbled together from the bits and pieces you’ve longed for in your mind. Features you think are…

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[thewriterrin]

And After I Read it, My Insides Became Soft and Bruised Like Days Old Fruit

I finished reading a book today, Micah Dean Hicks’ Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones, that made my heart hurt. It deals with, among other things hate and unfairness. And how dangerous it is to be different. Throughout my read my body thrummed with anger and pain for the characters. I protested in my head at the injustice, at how easy it was for certain characters to hate, and hard it was for them…

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[thewriterrin]

Untitled Short Story #5

I enjoy a good story about unfaithfulness and all the juicy things that it entails. I do not, however, condone it in real life. That's why I love fiction so much. There's room for so many possibilities in the worlds you build. You don't have to believe in the things you write. You just have to believe in your ability to write them. Theodore, husband and humble white collar worker, stood…

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[thewriterrin]

I Do Not Know How to Remember Without Feeling a Pang in My Chest

I do not know how to remember without feeling a pang in my chest. Why? Because I feel things too keenly. Because the past gets further and further away from me with every passing moment. Because it hurts to think about things I’ve left behind. Because my memories are too vivid. Because I can taste the pizza on Wednesdays at the dinner table when I was a kid. I can taste the salami and the cheese…

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[thewriterrin]

My Feelings are Jellyfish

Image by Connor Carruthers via Unsplash Have I told you that I like jellyfish? I do not love them, but I find them oddly appealing. But. When I think too much about what they look like, I find them somewhat disturbing. They’re like caps with wisps for legs. They’re really quite odd. I poke at my feelings like jellyfish washed ashore. They’re soft and exposed and I poke, poke, poke at them until…

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[thewriterrin]

I thought I’d be in love before I turned twenty-six, but I’ve only had crushes I was content watching from afar. I thought I’d turn sixteen and be crazy, and crazier, and that I’d be at my craziest in my early twenties, but never for a moment have I wanted to be anything other than rational. I thought I’d be different when I got older. Better, somehow. I am better, but not so great. My head is…

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[thewriterrin]

Untitled Short Story #4

It’s technically flash fiction, but… A man and his female companion are kissing on a bed big enough for four people. Theirs is the kind of kissing that typically precedes something else. His suit jacket is on the floor by the bed, along with most of her clothes. So while his shirt is untucked and several of the top buttons undone, she’s clad only in lacy panties so flimsy he could rip them off…

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[thewriterrin]

Worries, Thoughts, and Damaged Wiring

The wiring is damaged again, and I’m thinking that girl owes me thirty bucks for the lie I caught her in and I intend to collect. I’m a debtor as well but I’m owing an explanation as to why I didn’t call back that boy like I said I would. It wasn’t a lie when I told it, but now it looks like one. My jaw hurts from all the gum chewing but I can’t seem to stop. It’s a nervous habit, and I’m nervous…

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[thewriterrin]

I Don't Swear, But

I Don’t Swear, But

Listen. I’m not a poet. I don’t know that I would ever introduce myself as such. I don’t even know if the poems I write even qualify as, well, poems. But I had a negative feeling and I ran with it, and this is the result. Anger is creative fuel, as you know. I don’t swear, butThere is a forceful “fuck”Hanging at the back of my throatWaiting to be uttered I don’t swear, butMore and moreI find…

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[thewriterrin]

Because Life and Lemons and Nowhere to Make Lemonade

I wrote this when I was a teenager. This isn’t what it looked like back then. This is an extremely abridged version, with stuff added in. It’s about how I felt back then, and how I feel now as well, sometimes. It’s a bunch of thoughts thrown together. It’s very me, I think. Here is a thing that I designed myself, because I’m trying to be creative in other ways. On graduation day, you want to…

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