Dec 26
fiction 0 comments challenge: Reach
zazu's picture

reaching up

     The snow has melted, and the ground is bear and dry. Crumpled, delicate, leaves get blown across cracked dirt roads. Their autumn color now faded into a subtle and drab brown. The sky looms overhead, a pail, blue, with scattered gray clouds and the sun that peaks out from behind as the clouds travel slowly across the horizon. Everything appears still and undisturbed. The trees stand tall and unmoved as the sharp, frigid wind wind blows against their cracked, raw, branches that are speckled with different shades and reaching outwards in any direction away from their trunks. Some of the branches at the tops of the trees look as if they are thin fingers reaching for the sky. Stretching up, up, up...
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Posted: 12.26.19
Dec 19
poem 2 comments
zazu's picture

Everyone loves Lilian Trint

No one seemed to notice the girl who sat behind me in math class, until she left.
Until her name was whispered down the hallways of our school like a foreign language.
I didn't think that people could care about someone they never knew.
They never bothered to smile at her in the hallways, the way she would smile at them, like maybe she cared...
I don't know.
I never talked to her, but I always knew when she was there.
Even though she wasn't the sort of person you would remember.
She moved to Florida...I think.
My homeroom teacher commented offhandedly today how "everyone loved Lilian Trint..."
That was the girl's name I guess.
I don't think I understand that at all.
I don't think she was disliked...but that doesn't automatically mean that everyone loved her,
does it?
Or maybe everyone knew something about her that I didn't...
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Posted: 12.19.19
Dec 14
fiction 0 comments
zazu's picture

pink chalk

"Look, it's lava!" Emerson exclaims in alarm, pointing with her small hand to the narrow stream ahead, flowing with the bubbling amber liquid, that seems to shimmer more radiantly in the darkness of the cave. Emerson takes a deep breath, her small shoulders rising slightly, as she allows her gaze to focus in on the barrier ahead of her. There's a slight pause, and then she begins to run, her blond pigtails bouncing behind her. Emerson leaps over the lava, the the boiling magma barely lapping up to engulf her bear ankles. Safely on the other side she beams, triumphant. "You can do it!" She calls back to me in encouragement. Suddenly, a prius pulls into view, and the darkness from the cave vanishes instantly to be replace with sunlight, that radiates off of the cars shiny blue paint, making it sparkle. A women in the drivers seat, rolls down her window, pulling up beside me.
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Posted: 12.14.19
Dec 08
fiction 2 comments
zazu's picture

Thoughts on my sleeve

I sit on the steps in front of my house.
Doing absolutely nothing except breathing, (obviously), and chewing a piece of gum that is beginning to lose its flavor.
My dog runs across the front lawn, for seemingly no particular reason, barking like crazy...probably at the neighbors' ghost from next door...but that's just my theory.
I look up into a piercing blue sky. Speckled here and there with little white clouds.
I drum my fingers against my thigh, and pull my baseball cap lower over my eyes, looking at the random words I've written in sharpy on the underside of the brim.
Done,
Run,
Pun,
Sun... Wow, the sun is bright today.
I hear feet tapping on the sidewalk and look up briefly.
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Posted: 12.08.19
Oct 03
poem 1 comment
zazu's picture

When I saw you

Oct 03
poem 0 comments
zazu's picture

Away

Words will chase me down.
No matter where I run to. 
No matter the rays of sunlight that pierce my eyes,
And sparkle on the water.
Trying to be noticed in the early morning.
The turn of an absent smile.
The reflection of a strangers eyes in a mirror,
Staring at me.
No,
Staring at them.
Someone else.
Drifting away under the fantasy of a spotlight,
Losing ground,
With sneakers resting on starlight.
Even then,
Words will chase you down.
Even then,
You never stop running.
Running, into a blinding light, edged with fear,
Edged with hope.
Longing for something to change,
As words pound in my ears.
As feet pound on the pavement.
As lies pound under the surface of your gaze...
I understand.
But words will never leave me,
Scarred and bruised,
Even as I turn,
And walk away.
 
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Posted: 10.03.19
Apr 13
poem 2 comments
zazu's picture

stay

No one knows how long they'll last,
Sometimes a fire is extinguished too fast.
Sometimes the world stops turning for moments,
And the people who capture it are the artists and poets.
Sometimes your walls start to crumble away,
Because the people around you, have nothing to say.
You wish they're was a world where you simply fit,
But the puzzle is rigged and you'll never get it.
Don't play by the rules that are set in stone,
when it's the chances you take that move you along.
Don't fueled by the world that you live in today,
Tomorrow could be a new one just waiting for you to make way.
So, please stay.
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Posted: 04.13.19
Mar 23
poem 3 comments
zazu's picture

Rainbow at night

An ambulance siren wails through the night,
Its pitch rising and falling in the crisp winter air.
Pedestrians scurry on the sidewalk, many floors below my bedroom window,
And I could wonder:
Where are they going?
What are they thinking?
But I will never know as I sit and gaze out over the city.
The city that never sleeps.
An explosion of light in the darkness,
With shimmering skyscrapers,
And tall buildings, that glow over streets, shedding their light.

I zip up my jacket, and open my apartment door.
My boots tap softly on the hall carpet.
I ride the elevator down to the lobby,
And then go out into the street.
Outside, where the only view is at eye level.
It makes me feel small to know that someone could be looking down at me right now,
The way I looked at them.
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Posted: 03.23.19
Mar 19
fiction 1 comment
zazu's picture

Why would I care?

Scene 1
The spotlight shines on Finch Larson, a high school student, as he stands alone center stage. Everywhere else around him is dark.
FINCH: (fidgeting nervously) Hello? Is anyone there? It’s me. You know it’s me because... (pauses)... because....
Finch’s step-sister Olivia has the spotlight on a different part of the stage.
OLIVIA: You’re such a loser!
Finch’s dad appears too.
DAD: I’m disappointed in you son!
Then comes Finch’s X best friend Ethan.
ETHAN: Chill, dude, it was just a joke.
Next, there’s Finch’s mom.
 MOM: Ignore them Finch!
There is a brief black out, then the stage lights back up in Finch’s bed room, where his mom is waking him up.
MOM: Finch, wake up! It’s time to eat breakfast.
FINCH: I’m not hungry.
MOM: I don’t care! We are not having this discussion again. You are going to get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, and go school just like every other kid your age in this town.
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Posted: 03.19.19
Feb 19
poem 0 comments
zazu's picture

done

I see the smile linger on your face,
The glimmer in your eyes on the cusp of satisfaction,
As you run your fingers through wind swept-hair.
I know that you're not laughing with me,
You're laughing at me.
It tears me apart on the days I thought you were my friend.
But not today.
I take one last look at you, smirking.
I should be hurt, but I'm used to it.
Turning away, my figure fades into the sunset,
As I wordlessly tell you, that I am done.
 
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Posted: 02.19.19

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