Split Custody

From The Drabble archives. Enjoy.

By Rachel Doherty

Again, I’m left waiting. It’s the third time someone forgot to pick me up at school this month. Mom will blame Dad and Dad will blame Mom. I blame them both. Living half my life with one and half with another. In other words, all of my life without someone.

They say it will get better. They say they just have to work out a better schedule. Ever since the separation I am told just give it time and the kinks will get worked out. I know better. This is the new norm. I’m done waiting. I’ll just walk home.

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The Answers

By Ali Grimshaw

They call me adult.
I have learned to apologize, drive a car
mastered spell check to avoid embarrassment.
Yet my days of fevered creation
and re-imagining myself, remain inadequate.
Knowing I know less with each ring of curiosity around my trunk.
Like paint peeling off an old house I am more than one color.
I live as a revolving door to exit and enter,
each time with a different view.
Growing up I believed adults lived in sureness.
Shocked disappointment crashed down
when the truth broke through
with no answers in its hands for me.
Why didn’t mom tell me?

 

 

Dust to Dust

By CR Smith

She sits in her armchair picking at the worn arms listening to the clock tick. Sun streams through the window, through the net curtains, casting elongated patterns across the faded striped wallpaper.

The odd shapes flicker like an old movie watched in silence. The shaft of light highlighting dust particles dancing in mid-air buoyed by the draft drifting through the window.

A thin layer of grey coats the mantlepiece and all her mementos. It would have worried her once, before retirement from housework following decades of continuous service.

What a revelation to discover the layer of dust remains constant.

     
CR Smith’s work has appeared in Ellipsis Zine, Spelk Fiction, Zeroflash, The Cabinet of Heed, and Drabbledark: An Anthology of Dark Drabbles.

Enough

By tnkerr

She looked up at him and said, “You can’t hurt me anymore, Marcus. This isn’t like the last time. I’m stronger now, more resilient.”

Pulling the knife from her chest, she smiled and daubed the wound with her fingertips, “Damn, that’s gonna leave a scar.”

She spun the blade around flinging crimson droplets about the room.

Marcus held up his now empty hands and stepped away from Pam, his eyes imploring.

He missed the first step and tumbled down, ass over teakettle, stopping only when he lay crumpled and broken on the landing.

She still held the knife,

still smiled.

Journey

By Lynn White

He’s standing on the platform
with a small suitcase.
I’m not sure if he’s coming or going,
if it’s an arrival or departure.
It’s unclear.

It’s unclear
if the suitcase is full
or if it’s empty.
Once he packed it full
of his dreams, but now
it’s unclear
if any remain,
caught in the lining,
perhaps.

Perhaps she will help him
find them
before they are carried away
and are gone forever
on this train
or the next.
Perhaps it will become clear
when the train leaves the station.

     
Lynn White’s poems, have appeared in anthologies and journals such as Vagabond Press, Apogee, Firewords, Indie Soleil, Pilcrow & Dagger and Snapdragon.

Top of the Spiral Staircase

By Francinenyc

… and the bedroom door with my mother behind it, sulking in her Thursday robe, and now it’s early Friday. My father at the foot of the stairs. If I choose him, I have a life like the one papered on the walls of his office, beaches and Ferris wheels. If I choose her, it’s a life of closed doors and one day leaking into the next. I look at my father at the foot of the winding staircase. Winding like a mother’s arms around a newborn. I step back and knock on the bedroom door.

     
Francine Witte is the author of four poetry and two flash fiction chapbooks. Her full-length poetry collection, Café Crazy, was recently published by Kelsay Books.

Hashtag Haiku

By Cap’n FiveSevenFive

#Hashtag #hashmark #hashpipe #hash
browns #hay now brown cow
#cornedbeef hash #hashtag potatoes