Najwa Zandlo

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019

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https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/najwa-zandlo/
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21 stories

“How to Break-Up with Your Boyfriend” by Najwa Zandlo

It’s too late now. You’re already here. Just get out of the car. Seriously. Remember when breaking up with people was easy? Remember when it was just information passed in a note between classes?  

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“Cleansing” by Najwa Zandlo

When I was younger, maybe thirteen or fourteen, I snuck out of the house during a rainy Saturday afternoon. My mother was busy climbing mountains of laundry. My father was sending work emails from his office. The house was quiet, save for the sounds of the thunder and the dull hum of the storm, and I tip-toed down the stairs and quietly made my way through the patio door in the kitchen. I wasn’t allowed to play in the rain.

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“Masturbation: A Love Story” by Najwa Zandlo

My best friend in high school - Bartholomew - told me he masturbated before making any type of decision. He said, “You gotta release the tension before you do anything, even pick out what clothes to fucking wear.” He said we’re all wound up like springs, so we can’t think logically. Back then, I thought he was just a horny teenager that liked to jack off too much. Now, I think he was onto something. 

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“Falling in Love with a Haunted House” by Najwa Zandlo

Not all hauntings happen in Victorian-style houses with stained-glass windows and wrap-around porches. They aren’t limited to old, porcelain dolls, or leather-bound books with ancient languages scribbled inside. People can be haunted, too - hearts

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“Roast Beef and Antifreeze ” by Najwa Zandlo

I don’t even like roast - I feel the need to stress that. I hate it, actually. I hate the way it smells. I hate the way the meat tastes after cooking in its own juices for hours. I hate the vegetables - the carrots get soggy and the potatoes turn into mush. I hate that it takes all day to cook a good roast. I hate the way people turn...

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“The Laundry Room ” by Najwa Zandlo

Your mother is in there - in the laundry room - washing your clothes right now. She’s sorting out the darks from the lights, and she’s making neat piles on the floor of your dirty clothes. Let’s face it - they’re more than dirty,

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“I Love You” by Najwa Zandlo

“I love you,” he says. The room is warm and humid, our sweat mixing in the air, windows slightly cracked to let in the sounds of the warm, Southern night. We’re lying in bed. He has his arm around me in a way that has to be uncomfortable for him but oh-so-comfortable for me. The words are dripping over us – this is the first time he’s said it. This is the part where I’m supposed to say it back, but I’m choking. He’s relaxed against me, slowly falling asleep in the haze. Flashback to five years ago. I was walking dow...

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“How Drugs Taught Me to Orgasm and Hate Everyone Who Gave Me One” by Najwa Zandlo

 Love stinks.  I don’t mean that love is smelly — although, there a certain odor associated with love that I can’t quite place my finger on, and no candle company has been able to recreate. I mean that love stinks. It hurts. It’s like agreeing to have open-heart surgery in your best friend’s basement, knowing that he only has a few rusty knives and instructions printed off the internet — except, his printer was low on ink so there are a lot of smudges and missing informat...

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“Arthur was a Rolling Stone” by Najwa Zandlo

“We were gonna top the charts, kid,” he says, the hand holding his cigarette shaking violently, “We were gonna go far.”  He’s talking to me, but he’s also talking to everyone else – all the shapeless, nameless voices in his head. His name is Arthur McCarthy, and he was the lead guitarist in a rock band called, “The Weeping.” He’s also my bunkmate at St. Lucia’s’ House, the rehab facility I’ve been living in for the last six months.  Rehab is sort of like the first day of school, every day. ...

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“The Case of Helen Marie” by Najwa Zandlo

I grew up in the small town of Greenville – a catacomb of high school beauty queens, football stars with knees that never stopped popping out of place, wasted potential, and nameless skeletons. I saw it as a spiderweb, with every resident inexplicably connected to his or her neighbors in a shiny, silky string that functioned more like a conveyer belt than anything else. Everyone hatched the same babies, carried them on their backs to the same places, and ate the same flies as everyone else – the ubiquitous experience of anyone born in a s...

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“Shipwrecked in the Self-Help Aisle” by Najwa Zandlo

Dear Sandy,             WOW! Can I just start by saying I may be your biggest fan? I’ve followed your column in the newspaper for years. The piece you wrote last week, about therapeutic gardening – that was genius. I bought a small bonsai tree for my office at work, so fingers crossed. I’ve read everything you’ve written. I’ve listened to you tell wives to leave their husbands, give new mothers breastfeeding advice, and help siblings reconcile their differences. I’ve ...

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“Lost Souls ” by Najwa Zandlo

“When’s the last time you cleaned yourself?” I say, crinkling my nose. “I washed up yesterday,” he says, sniffing his armpit and shrugging his shoulders.“You’re lying. You smell like that bag of garbage I took out yesterday.” “Well, maybe you just got some shit under your nose when you took it out,” he says, laughing. What day is it? I think to myself. I’ve lost all track of time. It could be Monday; it could be Saturday. Maybe time has just stopped alt...

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“Pine Trees and Other Drugs” by Najwa Zandlo

Trigger warning: this story depicts suicide, depression, and miscarriage. I was eleven years old when I thought about suicide for the first time. I was sitting in the backseat after leaving a birthday party, and my mom was droning on and on in the front seat about our plans for the week and the scheduled time I had with my dad that weekend, and I imagined her life without me in it – I took myself out of the picture. In my vision, her worry lines faded away. Her speckled gray hair went dark again. I imagined she and my dad wo...

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“New Year, New Me” by Najwa Zandlo

Trigger warning: this story depicts rape. I read somewhere that every cell in the human body is replaced every seven years – which isn’t entirely accurate. Some cells take upwards of ten to fifteen years to replace themselves. Some cells, like the ones in the eye, never replace themselves. But, it’s still a nice thought. It’s comforting to imagine that every seven years, the human body erases like an Etch-a-Sketch, leaving behind a clean slate that hasn’t been touched.  I...

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“Fate” by Najwa Zandlo

       “It all boils down to fate, son.”             These were the words my father said to me as we stood in line at the Disability Office, waiting to collect the monthly check that was supposed to help feed and clothe us for the month but, inevitably, would be spent at the liquor store down the road from our house. My father, a stocky man with a protruding beer-belly and a receding hairline, had worked in a factory for almost twent...

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