Dora Acosta

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2022

Stories (5)

5 Stories

180 karma pts

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“The Night Shift” by Dora Acosta

Submitted to Contest #219

Before I started working here, I thought the hardest thing about doing time was how long you had to be here. I read somewhere that they use places like this to suck the soul out of you. I’m paraphrasing, and I don’t know how true that article was, but it does feel like this place consumes you every time you walk in here. It takes everything you have to give: energy, clarity, and time. And if you’re lucky enough to walk out. You have little, if anything, left over.  For some folks, time flies. For others, it stands perfectly still: six...

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“From Where You Dream” by Dora Acosta

Submitted to Contest #206

I’m awake this time. At least, I think I am. This place looks like my room and feels like my bed and sheets, but everything is a little moist. Am I sweating? Was I dreaming? Two minutes ago, I think this place caught on fire. But now I feel cold all over. I pull my sheets up closer to me. I scan the room, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. My drapes flutter. Is my window open? I never sleep with it open. What time is it? I search for my alarm clock but can’t find it. It should be on my nightstand. I used my hands to feel around. Mayb...

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“Dust to Dust” by Dora Acosta

Submitted to Contest #205

I remember the night we left Haiti like a dream. It was a hot and sticky August night, and my little brother and I slept huddled together on the same bed. He had wet his bed the day before, so his mattress was still leaning on the patio railing to dry. My mother woke us hurriedly, shaking our legs in hushed tones. “We have to go,” she urged. “Grab your things,” she continued as she walked to the other end of the room. I remember thinking, what things? What time is it? But as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I saw our school b...

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“In Transition ” by Dora Acosta

Submitted to Contest #142

The plane ride from Florida to Haiti was shorter than I expected. It was forty-five minutes of clear skies, sunshine highs, and windy lows. Since leaving months after my eighth birthday on a humid summer night under the full moon’s light, I have not been back. The last time I looked up at the moon was from the rooftop of my grandfather’s house. I promised myself and Patrice, my cousin who was more of a sister to me than a cousin, to be back. I figured if I believed it hard enough and made promises with every fiber of my being, this change wo...

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“Two Sides Of The Same Coin” by Dora Acosta

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #140

I remember my childhood in bits and pieces, like framed pictures of specific events that exist independently of all the other memories. There was the time I challenged my brother to a foot race down the steps of the rocky hill on the side of my grandfather’s house. My mother warned us to never run down the hill lest we injure ourselves. But that did not thwart us at all. We waited for her to go to work and proceeded with our plans. What else was there to do in the hot summer sun but run, hide, play, and take in all of the day’s light. There ...

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Author bio

Dora Acosta is a writer and educator based in the United States. She first started writing poetry at the age of fourteen when she discovered and fell in love with the poems of Shel Silverstein. She also writes short stories, prose poems, and spoken word poetry. Her influences are Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Toni Morrisson, and Alysia Harris. She published her first poem in Chord Magazine, and her first essay, The Loss Of A Culture With An Accent, was featured in Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge. She loves to write, read, and teach others to do the same.

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #140
Two Sides Of The Same Coin – read story