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It's a literary fiction story about growing up.

Posted in Novel on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 39 stories

I Write The Songs. (Note: this is based off of the song "I Write the Songs" by Barry Manilow.)

Submitted to Contest #14

I’ve been alive forever. And when I say forever I mean, forever. In fact, I wrote the very first song, sort of. It was one of my more great accomplishments. I guess you could say it was one of his greatest accomplishments, but it was not he who thought up of the words or wrote the music. Not really. It was actually me.O------------------------------------------------------------O He was a bright young man, and, like any boy his age, was constantly hoping and wishing that someday he would be well known, and liked by everybody. He was my...

35 likes 2 comments 2
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Equality

Shortlisted for Contest #14 ⭐️

  Birds in the trees, singing like there would never be another sun, a white house by a gravel driveway, dew on the grass, the dogs still sleeping; the world held still the day you were born. Somewhere a child let go of their balloon, and it floated up above the clouds, going to the moon for you. A whale rolled over down under the dark mountains of blue water, and it sang a song meant for you. The stars burned brighter because of you.   There was no moon in the sky that night. The stars drowned in a swamp of black cl...

22 likes 0 comments 0
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Racing the Clouds

Submitted to Contest #14

Hot, wet darkness squeezed on her body. She heard cries of pain and excitement. Then suddenly--  Blinding light! She wailed, trying to cough the icky fluid stuck in her lungs. Someone’s big hands grasped her slimy body.  “It’s a girl!” someone shouted. She cried louder. Of course she was a girl! Didn’t they know? The light hurt her eyes--and the noise! These older humans were really very intolerably loud. She felt her body being handed to someone. Gentle, warm arms wrapped around her; it was mother. She just knew it.  “My prec...

19 likes 8 comments 8
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To Mrs Norton, with Love and Thanks

Submitted to Contest #14

“Sometimes I think there’s no pleasing that child!” I knew that I wasn’t supposed to hear what my Grandma said (I had come home from my ballet class early because the electricity in the hall was playing up) and I knew beyond any doubt that she was talking about me. She did not say it angrily, or resentfully, and it was not as if she had said that I was unkind or stupid or anything like that. I liked my Grandma. I even fancied we had a special bond. We had the same name, Elizabeth, though she was always called Betty a...

11 likes 0 comments 0
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It's Not You, It's Me

Submitted to Contest #14

Mimi sat sipping her warm apple cider, her hands wrapped around the warmth of the mug.  The cinnamon stick lightly clinking against the rim. She stared out the window at the kaleidoscope of multi-colored leaves spiraling around caught in gusts of wind.  Mimi loved this time of year – the November colors so vibrant, so bright, so dramatic…their last great hurrah before the drabness of winter. And yet this time of year also made her feel slightly sad – a persistent sense of dread that simmered right beneath the surface of all that ...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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Memories

Submitted to Contest #14

Ours was a big old house in the center of a large compound mainly characterized by a quarter of a century old rickety thatch houses that served as homes to the thirteen legal wives of my grandfather. It was a beautifully hand-stoned semi modern house, the first of its kind in the area, with a refetory-like sitting room that never served its purpose. There were never chairs or tables except some old fashioned irreparable motorcycle parts all covered in thickets of cobwebs. Only the elite children lived in the big house with their father as th...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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My Mother

Submitted to Contest #14

Trigger warning: this story depicts self-harm and suicide. Growing up with a masochist for a mother was something new and different. No one else had one. But I did. I would wake up hearing screams and moans emanating from my mother’s bedroom. These weren’t sounds of pleasure. My mother would hurt herself through the night. At eight years old, I didn’t know what to do. Then at nine, ten, eleven years old, I still didn’t know what to do. Now I’m eighteen, about to move out of my childhood home and I’m forced to face those awful memories. I rem...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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Breaking Free

Submitted to Contest #14

Once upon a time, there was a girl sweet as sugar and as beautiful as a blossoming flower.Just kidding. I'm a girl raised on heat and dust and bitter coffee grounds, of cloudy skies and starless nights, of the sun burning down on my back and frost biting my skin. I am made of blood and sweat and hard work.My eyes lost the brightness and wonder of childhood once my parents taught me that work was the only thing that would do me any good, my mouth stopped asking questions once I realized there were no answers in life, only working and living a...

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Baby Blue

Submitted to Contest #14

Baby Blue Saved by the bell, thought most of the students at High Park Elementary School at 3:15pm every day. Not Robbie though. Never Robbie. He had five minutes to spare before the two goons would jump him for not paying his daily “Air Tax”. It wasn’t his fault that his mother failed to give him money today. She had packed him a lunch for the first time since fourth grade. Maybe she was suspicious of why he came home ravenous every day, ready to eat a horse.  Robbie adjusted his thin rectangular frames and kept his head down as he sli...

5 likes 1 comment 1
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Homecoming

Submitted to Contest #14

Tommy hadn’t been home in years, returning now only for Mom’s funeral. He slowed as he approached the door. He took the key out of his pocket, put it in the keyhole, took a deep breath, and turned the latch. “I’m home. Can I have a hot dog before chores and homework?” Tommy called out to the empty house. He turned on the lights and opened the fridge. It was bare. “I guess not.” Tommy closed the fridge and headed through the living room. He paused to take it in. Same tired furniture. Same worn carpet. A spot on the wall bearing witness to an ...

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of things unknown (and longed for still)

Submitted to Contest #14

"What is dancing, Lilith?" A microphone was held against the child's lips, blameless and naive and unknowing of the world's secrets. The girl hesitated."Dancing is... happiness.""What do you want to be when you grow up?" the lady asked, bright red lipstick looking daunting, showcasing bared white teeth. Lilith itched in her chair. But back then, tight dresses felt better."A choreographer," she declared after a moment, beaming - it's what they all expected, after all. Lilith Welsh, child prodigy. Acclaimed dancer.Now, self-deemed future chore...

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To Kill a Childhood

Submitted to Contest #14

Jessica twirled, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her light blue dress swirled around her knees. The fitted bodice was held by straps of thin, braided darker velvet. Her brown hair was loose around her thin face. If she angled her head just right, her curls masked the acne that spread across her cheek. Her shy smile was coated in cherry lipgloss. She felt…almost pretty.Her first year of high school was also her first at boarding school, Duke Waltham’s Preparatory Academy. She had left home with a childlike faith that everything wou...

5 likes 3 comments 3
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My best friend

Submitted to Contest #14

It all started when my parents were all the time unto each others neck, fighting and querelling. I would admit that by that time I was a little girl, but, seeing the fight between them always got into my head. Their fights led them to live separate lives, my eyes wrinkled in sadness because my family had broken into two. love I had for them brought me into confusion, "they should just cut me into two. Being the only girl said Miss Randy, I was always pampered that there was this thing of let the best man win. No matter my parents being...

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Magnolias in May

Submitted to Contest #14

I licked the stars and the moon from the sky like pancakes, the syrup oozing from my pores. I ripped my voice from the jagged wind. I promised I wouldn’t let go, but I did. There were too many ghosts crowding my mind, breathing against my windowpanes leaving snow angels without their wings. There were always crowds, always people walking away into murky shadows. I feel the open wounds of my angels, they tell me to smell the flowers and then blow out the candles. I am stuck between the light and dark, the back and forth making me na...

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A life through trees

Submitted to Contest #14

If you fall out of a tree, do you get back up yourself or get help from other???By Lisa MonkBelieve me, I know what that's like. You can't just live life without meeting people and facing obstacles along the way. That's just how God made it. We have to accept that. And I've faced many obstacles. No one really understands growing up, or why it happens, or why we go through what we go through. But I figured that out.My aunt was a drug dealer. She was sentenced to jail for life when she was caught. My mom had grown up on a barn, and ran away wh...

4 likes 2 comments 2
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