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“What do you mean something’s wrong with the kitchen sink, I just spent 4500 dollars getting it fixe?”
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“Marianne, fun stuff comes with a certain age.” Sarcasm dripped. “ Pain comes out of nowhere, it leaves one disgusted and usually debilitated in some sense of the word.” Her thumb was out of commission for a weekend once. She couldn’t use her left hand, gratefully, She was right handed, but it made typing a
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Show Biz “Oh, come on. You can be Festus and you can be Ms. Kitty,” “But, I want to be Matthew. He’s the sheriff,” he was being petulant, we all knew because his lower lip was sticking out. He was a decent actor. “You can’t be Matthew. You get all the women in the cat
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Make Mistakes The acronym for Math is Mistakes Allow Thinking to Happen. Because of the mistakes I’ve made in my life, I am the wisest woman in the country, not the world though, I have not experienced war. I’ve thought about it, and don’t want to go through it. I know it’s coming to this
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“Aren’t you supposed to party with pretty plates and finger foods on New Year’s day?” “You’re supposed to put out all these pretty snacks and have your friends over and drink champagne and talk about all the disappointment you got at Christmas.” “You’re supposed to be putting away the Christmas tree, running the sweeper, doing
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Jan 1 Writing Prompt I didn’t make this one up. “What chances in my life did I let go or didn’t take?” This is the stuff that four a.m. monologues are made of. I laugh in the face of such insolence, ha. Should we include the stupid alternative choices I made as well? I should
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Don’t make any, They have no power, no grip That’s not exactly true You always remember them, no matter what you do. It’s a boundary thing. Put your head down and go face first into the maelstrom, get it over with Like shots, jabs, injections When I was in my forty-fives, I swan dove into
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God, if you say one more weird thing about something, You’ll get punched.
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Not the Same
IT’S DIFFERENT written by: Devonne Brown published by SpillWords, January 19, 2023 @athesaurus1 The quiet is different this morning.Its timbre has a breadth, a substanceI hadn’t noticed before.The quiet when the boys slept was full of their dreamsThis emptiness is hard. It supersedes noisefrom the TVthat deafens the background silence.It shatters then evaporates like it Read more
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Waning Xmas
This Week The end of Christmas, the end of the semester, parent conferences, the end of winter break. Parents signed up to be able to tell the teacher how cool their kids were. Endless talk about their kids. They didn’t care about behavior or academics. They wanted to tell us, their teachers, all about their Read more
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Holiday Fruit Salad
Thanksgiving is about fruit salad. Forget the birds and big gourds, even the shellfish and breadcrumbs. It’s all about the fruit. When Dad was little, his dad would make this incredible fruit salad during the holidays. When you’re from Clay county WV, that fruit salad is a gourmet delight. Grapes, bananas, mandarin oranges, fruit cocktail, Read more
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Flu and Cold Season
Getting old has symptoms. Stuff I’d always made jokes about in people are really true. Losing hair, eyesight, and teeth aren’t funny things that happen, but do. I’ve always been a list maker and note taker. Memory loss may or may not occur, I don’t know. What I need to remember, I do. The power Read more
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The Plan
“I’ve got a plan,” said Norris. He looked around the room until his eyes found the dog. It was a poodle, a big brown one. In the poodle world it had several names: German Water Retriever, Standard Poodle, Brown Abstract Poodle, Spoo, Soup Hound, West Virginia Brown Dog, Opal Pearl. Madam, the saddle back, black Read more
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The Code
I began drafting the next “Code” last night. Of all the Christmas traditions floating around, my favorite is the Christmas code. My boys tolerate it, everyone else finds it mildly entertaining, and it brings a huge grin to my face every Christmas celebration. I don’t put name tags on packages, I have a secret code Read more
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“What do you mean something’s wrong with the kitchen sink, I just spent 4500 dollars getting it fixe?”
-
“Marianne, fun stuff comes with a certain age.” Sarcasm dripped. “ Pain comes out of nowhere, it leaves one disgusted and usually debilitated in some sense of the word.” Her thumb was out of commission for a weekend once. She couldn’t use her left hand, gratefully, She was right handed, but it made typing a
-
Show Biz “Oh, come on. You can be Festus and you can be Ms. Kitty,” “But, I want to be Matthew. He’s the sheriff,” he was being petulant, we all knew because his lower lip was sticking out. He was a decent actor. “You can’t be Matthew. You get all the women in the cat
-
Make Mistakes The acronym for Math is Mistakes Allow Thinking to Happen. Because of the mistakes I’ve made in my life, I am the wisest woman in the country, not the world though, I have not experienced war. I’ve thought about it, and don’t want to go through it. I know it’s coming to this
-
“Aren’t you supposed to party with pretty plates and finger foods on New Year’s day?” “You’re supposed to put out all these pretty snacks and have your friends over and drink champagne and talk about all the disappointment you got at Christmas.” “You’re supposed to be putting away the Christmas tree, running the sweeper, doing
-
Jan 1 Writing Prompt I didn’t make this one up. “What chances in my life did I let go or didn’t take?” This is the stuff that four a.m. monologues are made of. I laugh in the face of such insolence, ha. Should we include the stupid alternative choices I made as well? I should
-
Don’t make any, They have no power, no grip That’s not exactly true You always remember them, no matter what you do. It’s a boundary thing. Put your head down and go face first into the maelstrom, get it over with Like shots, jabs, injections When I was in my forty-fives, I swan dove into
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God, if you say one more weird thing about something, You’ll get punched.
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Ukiyo
“I’m home,” Liza said walking through the door of her house. Nobody answered, nobody was there. “I’m home,” she sighed. The silence that greeted her made her smile. She set her bag on the floor beside the china cabinet and heard the faint rattle of the dishes within its wooden walls. The cat sauntered from…
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Reflection
Will I be calm because I am the crone now? The wise woman and matriarch. I’ve been where most women haven’t been yet and I hope they don’t have to tread in all of my footsteps. I’ve walked through painful places, broken glass and hot coals in bare feet to develop the calluses of wisdom. …
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Bridal White
Say yes to the dress. There’s power in the dress. I remember my sister standing in the dressing room as she stepped into the puddle of white satin on the floor. The puddle became an armor of white. Bridal white. At twenty-three, I was reluctant to get a wedding dress. I couldn’t bear to go…
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The Tree
Once upon a time, I felt like I was separate from everyone else, standing off to the side by myself. I felt ugly and freakish. I just didn’t feel like I was in the forest with the rest of the trees. I felt like a different species that had been planted in the yard as…
Devonne Brown 