Late night escape

There were so many days when you didn't stand there at the door, but then one day you did.

You had been drinking, I could tell. It is almost as if I could tell how drunk you were even as I didn't notice you coming up the drive, because I was so intently focussed on my husband's arm which he had lifted in that ballerina-like careless fashion which could only mean it would come crashing down on some bodypart of mine at any second.

Why didn't you come before? Sometimes I found it hard not to hate you because you didn't drag me away from my house and lock me in your basement to keep me away from him. I thought you were too drunk to notice.

But now I realise you were just not drunk enough to step across that limit, to come to my house even as the storm was brewing in a bodum teapot, to catch him at it. To catch me at it. Brandishing your patent leather handbag like a cigarette burn, your red lipstick stuck to your left front tooth as it always is on you any time after midnight, seven days a week.

The doorbell must have rung, I know. Because you stepped in between me and the door to the hallway and shook your head almost imperceptibly, a tic more than a movement.

And you did not heed him.

You barged in.

So that is where my missing house key went last week, and I have the broken arm to prove I really did lose it.

You drove me to your house, pissed as usual but a good drunk driver you always were.

We hid in your basement, the way I dreamt, though you didn't have to tie me up.

The times I put you in a cab and put a tenner in your pocket, the times I held your hair back, the times I told you the first name of the guy you went home with the night before as I picked up what was left of you from the bathroom floor the next morning.

I always thought I would be the one saving you.

But thank you anyway.

Wind stone

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My grandmother gave it to me, she said
It sings the longing of
Your soul towards the ocean
Which I had never seen
The shore full
A choire


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Ladder

You might say I fall,

but I float, feet first, heart

bouncing behind,

tied to a string,

like a Yo-Yo.

Your words are a ladder

I grasp for, feet first, heart,

it leads nowhere,

tied up with string,

a gift of explosives.

Pivotal moment

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She looked around and saw that there were nobody around.

She looked up at the tree again.

The night before she had read in her tree book that the maple tree looked exactly like one of these, wide leaves like some strange animal's palm, seeds like little helicopters.

"It is not a birch tree", she thought to herself.

Her daddy was clearly wrong.


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Today's prompt was: Child posted at The One-Minute Writer. Write a short, fictional piece about a pivotal moment in a child's life. Write in first person, from the point of view of the child.

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Since then, I've held a job the title of which did not start with the word "assistant".

I have a boyfriend who does not think Bavaria should be given to the Jews.

I have bought a flat.

I've started a new career.

I've moved house eight times.

A lot can change in a day, too.

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Today's Writing Prompt: Five years at The One-Minute Writer. Reflect on how your life has changed since March 5, 2004.

I would do anything for love...

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...but I wouldn't cheat on my boyfriend.

Even as I see you slipping down the slope, and I know in my heart that your life would be very different if we were together, I won't do it.

I won't allow myself to go back on my commitments, I won't give him up.

Our love is not worthless. It's just that there is no space for it in my life anymore.


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Today's Writing Prompt: That at The One-Minute Writer . In the words of the singer Meatloaf, "I would do anything for love, but I won't do that." What is"that" to you?

Crisis

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I don't think I've ever experienced something I would call a crisis.

I am a very levelheaded individual.

I remember almost breaking up with people, or breaking up with them, which might have been stormy, but it's hardly a crisis.

Life goes on.

Sometimes I worry that crises lie in wait for me cause I've laughed at them.

Then I dream that food in my fridge has gone off and I haven't had time to chuck it out.

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Today's Writing Prompt: Crisis posted by C. Beth at The One-Minute Writer:

Write about your reaction to a crisis you experienced or encountered.