Longing [writing prompt]

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PRACTICE

Write about longing.

Write for fifteen minutes. When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.

And if you post, please be sure to give feedback to a few other writers.

Longing

Photo by Bhumika Bhatia

Here’s my practice:

I used to long for deserts. I used to long for long horizons filled with nothing but red dirt and white, effacing skies. Destroying yourself can be beautiful too, and I imagined myself staring into sunsets in that place and forgetting my life entirely.

I longed for less because I didn’t have enough and wanted to erase my need for anything. And because of the sharpness of my longing, it had color and form, filled with contrast and sharp line. It was a Picasso; its shapes fractured and fragmented by the strength of my desire. I miss my longing.

Because I don’t long for deserts anymore. Instead, I want cities. I want tall buildings fill with beautifully apportioned rooms, bookshelves stacked with color, plays in the evenings followed by cocktails and warm conversations with friends, Ann Arbor, with its excess of accessible culture, parks where I can watch my daughters play. This is the dull, muddled longing of the already content.

Desire is the spice of life. What do you do when you get what you want? How do you cope when what you miss is the longing itself?

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About the Author

Joe Bunting (@joebunting)

Joe is a ghostwriter, editor, and an aspiring fiction author. He writes and edits books that change lives. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

  • Mirelba

     

    Maria blew on her hands as she rubbed them together.  She gazed wistfully at the people walking by
    in their warm boots and fancy coats.  Life
    seemed to be moving in vicious circles: 
    she needed decent clothing to stay warm, she needed money to buy decent
    clothing, she needed a job to get money and she needed decent clothing to land
    a job.  Who would hire her in her
    tattered state?

    Maria was desperate for a chance to break out of the
    cycle.  She regretted all the missed
    opportunities, all the moves, all the trouble and upheavals of her life.  She wished for a new opportunity, a chance to
    get herself firmly on the path ahead. 
    But where was she to find it?  She
    wandered down the street, headed toward the library.  She would peek in, see who was there today,
    the dragon lady or the kooky one with the faithful dog eyes.  If it was old faithful eyes, maybe she’d go
    in to warm up and do some reading.  She
    was halfway through the D volume of the encyclopedia, after working herself
    through volumes A to C.  So much to
    learn, so much wonder in the world.  If
    only she could reach out and grab a piece of it!  

     

  • ryuuzaki

    He could feel it persist in the back of his mind: a constant hum, a drum that sank deeper and darker into the corners of his consciousness. The beating was endless, something like a series of numbers marching its way relentlessly on to infinity. Yet, he continued to walk, even as a gentle drizzle of rain nestled itself onto the ridges of his collar, perching on the light surface of his hair. Drum… drum… drum…

    Once, he had been afraid. When realizing the soft but steady beat would never cease, he lay awake at night, eyes wide and mouth dry. Could no one else hear it? Was he the only one?

    He pulled his trench coat tighter about himself and shivered. He had reached the edge of the pier now and stood at its edge. The water seemed to him to writhe, wild in its yearning, trapped by some spell cast ritually in the night. For even as the waves struggled and in sweeping motions cast themselves forward, an invisible hand too quickly pulled them back.

    Please, he thought. The drumming had grown louder as if to rise above the crashing sea. He fell to his knees, his head in his hands. Please…

    • zo-zo

      You’ve painted such a strong picture of somebody tormented, at the very end of his tether.  I love how you describe the sea – writhing and wild, and the reader wonders if this is because of his mind, or if it’s part of a real storm approaching.  

  • Nikki

    I know this is short, but I have had a hard time writing for the past year. This has made me feel a lot more confident. Thank you

    Longing,

     

    I’ve always longed for a romance
    that brings the strongest man to his knees, with a brilliant diamond ring
    placed in his trembling hand, yearning for one thing in return, my love.

    I long for the strongest out of
    them all, the lion who protects his lioness and his land. I want the beast that
    has the biggest mane and the broadest shoulders, with nothing that could cross
    his path and take what is rightfully his.

    His roar echoing across his
    horizon, with such a melody of confidence none dare to collide in the way of
    his path. His stride smooth and collected, provoking any tinge of doubt by
    those watching with the truth of his power… not something said, but something
    felt… something that just was.

    I want the leader of the pack,
    the man that knows his own strength.

    I want the lion whose roar is the
    loudest in the valley, but I want to be the lioness that he couldn’t possibly
    or survive without.

    Though I expect the protection,
    the heresy, and the crown… I hunt for that right. My body’s stride is one that
    attacks to feed the heart that holds such a desire.

     

     

  • http://agentsrapier.wordpress.com/ A Gentleman’s Rapier

    The Portuguese have a word, saudades, that represents a longing that goes beyond nostalgia. Saudades is something that comes upon one and possesses them much deeper than other feelings. One often thinks that not much happens in Portugal because people are struck paralysed by their longing. Their saudades.

    When I think of saudades, as it is a greater degree of longing as we would call it, I am reminded of nights walking through Bairro Alto with B. and how she showed me her city, Lisboa. She had spent some time away and had recently returned.

    We met outside of the theatre where we were both auditioning to be in an English-language musical. The conversation was struck up, her English being of the kind one might call “cut glass”. She spoke so well. 

    The conversation turned around, as it inevitably does when people hear my accent to nationalities.

    “So, you’re an American?” she asked.

    “Yes,” I replied, “and you’re English?”

    “No, I’m Portuguese,” she smiled.

    What followed was a conversation about how gob-smacked I was at how well she spoke. It emerged that her mother taught at one of the international schools that British ex-pats send their children to, and she went there herself.

    She had been dating a brilliant actor who was part of the troupe and I was in a long-distance marriage at the time of our initial encounter. We eventually became friends but somewhere in there she went off to Sweden, her boyfriend acquired a heroin habit which made him batshit crazy, and I separated from my wife. When she returned, we renewed our acquaintance, and went through a rather intense courtship.

    And B. took me up to Bairro Alto and showed me her City from the viewpoint overlooking the Baixa and straight across to the Castle. And explained to me saudades.

    One often links saudades to the fado music being played in some of the restaurants around Lisboa, where a singer sings along to a couple of guitars and sings their guts out about loss, sadness, the past.

    She taught me how romantic her city was. And then one day, she went back to Sweden for an unspecified amount of time, and I went on with my wild life.

    She came back once, and tried to convince me to go to Sweden to be with her when I left the Navy. However, I had already made plans to be with A., whom I had met in the interim, in London. B. came to Cascais where I lived, and we spent the afternoon in the cafe, hanging out with all of my slacker buds. We went back to my house and she made love to me. And cried when it was over, as we both knew it would be the last time.

    I walked her back to the train station and she held my hand, whilst I tried to be discreet so that word would not get back to A. As she walked down the platform, I saw in her eyes that look of saudades.

    And once again, I moved on with my life. Do I ever long for her? No. But when I hear a fado or think of Bairro Alto, I smile to myself, as I did learn the meaning of saudades, once.

  • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

    Joe, I love this prompt and your practise.  ’I used to long for long horizons filled with nothing but red dirt and white, effacing sky.’ – beautiful.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      And I can tell other people really connected with this prompt too – SO much great writing.  Been my morning treat to read it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

    Sometimes the feeling was so deep that it cut into the beginning of her words, and everyone looked up from their homework or newspaper or lego and stared at her.  It was the rounded rage in her sentences they didn’t recognise. Usually she swallowed it down with morning pills and orange juice.  

    They were used to the image she slathered on every morning with the layers of foundation, and the thick eyeliner that turned the colours of her eyes luminous.  Distract, hissed the voice in her head, distract as much as you can.  And Jack never felt her tight muscles in bed as the hours rolled on because his desire to touch her dissolved years ago, with the new baby.  His temperature rose solely from the Cardinals’ victory and Obama’s speeches.

    The terror started just after conception when it woke her up from a dream where she cradled a powdered baby in her arms.  The revelation took the breath right out of her.  Her body would change shape.  She’d never thought about it like that – all she’d seen was the baby, the gift at the end and forgotten that her body became the tent that the baby stretched bigger with every month.  Jack slept soundly as she paced the floor, trying to erase the image in her mind.  Eventually she grabbed a bottle of his Captain Morgan and took a few swigs to induce sleep.

    If it weren’t for Jack, perhaps it would have been different.  

    ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said over a plate of lasagna.

    His eyes narrowed. ‘When last did you eat?’

    She tapped her finger on the mahogany table and then stopped, looking up guiltily into his eyes. ‘Three hours ago.’

    ‘What?’

    ‘Fruit and yogurt.  And nuts, a whole bunch.’  A spoon of yogurt, two strawberries and an almond and it’d still damn well go to her hips.

    ‘The baby needs food.’  Slowly, and patronisingly he spoke to her, like he’d grown old and she young.

    ‘Yes love,’ she’d say, cutting a chunk of lasagna and lifting it to her mouth and smiling perfectly. ‘Of course he does.’

    Jack sat over her and watched that fork quiver to her mouth, her hate for him and the baby intensifying in every bite.  Her career took only a month or two to dissolve – they never allowed the time for the fat to show. 

    And boy did she become fat.  The waddling, the double-chin, the thighs that shuddered with her steps was too much for her.  She had Jack take down the sharp mirror in the bathroom and covered the mirrored bedroom wall with black Japanese screens.

    The mirrors still weren’t up, and no matter how thin Jack told her she was, how she’d lost all that weight at the gym and enough was enough now, she still saw her body lumbering to and fro, a tent caught open in the wind.

    • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

       Very powerful!

    • Plumjoppa

      Her despair and loss of self image is so clear!

      • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

        Thanks, Plumjoppa!  

    • ryuuzaki

       I LOVE the first paragraph. The rounded rage in her sentences… a feeling cutting into the beginning of words.

      • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

        Thank you, Ryuuzaki!

  • Aisling

    Two weeks back at work, two weeks away from home. I’m counting the days on last years advent calender until I can go back again. I feel a swirling confusion of nostalgia, loneliness and impatience. The accents here are odd with words I don’t understand. Even the hours are different. I long for home.

    I miss the sodden purple mountains I walked on muddy tracks. I miss the people, my family. Nobody does extended family and connections like the Irish – “You know your one Mary, not Mary Sheehy, but John Joe’s wife’s cousin Mary MacCarthy? Well, she was off to Lanzarote this week, never more deserved by her after all her troubles, but barely had she landed and there was pouring rain. Her hotel even flooded! She and Mike, her husband – he works in the butchers on New Street – they had to move to a place down the road in the back of beyond!”

    I even miss the currency, economic failure that it is – the harp on the back and the faces on the notes that recall history lessons or shreds of poetry or stories. I long to be home; it feels like I’m a picture without a frame.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      This is beautifully written.  Your piece reminded me of all the feelings I had when away from home – ‘a swirling confusion of nostalgia, loneliness and impatience’ – I felt exactly the same in the first year away from home.  I love the Irishness of the dialogue, you get such a strong feeling of home.  Amazing how just an accent can make you feel homesick or very much at home.  Great last line.   

  • wendy2020

    I’ve been “longing” to write for this prompt, but haven’t had the chance until now, when everyone but me has moved onto the next prompt and then the prompt after that.  But here goes…)

    I miss his hands.
     
    The first time he touched me, his right hand laced through my hair at the nape of my neck and his left hand dove inside my winter coat pulling me closer without hesitation or question.   I buried my face in his shoulder and clung to him like this whole thing might slip away like a shadow without light.  The air I breathed was so bathed in him, it was almost wet.  Leather (from his jacket) and lust (from the scent of him and the cologne he wore because he knew it was my favorite).  He was intoxicatingly sexy.  And he was mine.
     
    I hadn’t had the foresight to purchase waterproof mascara.  But he cupped my face in his hands and kissed each inky tear of mine away.  My cheeks flushed to match the heat of his lips.  I sighed reflexively, and he swallowed it up with his mouth on mine.  I teetered on tiptoe, but his strong arm wrapped around me and steadied me with his palm pressed to small of my back.  His other hand held my face, as if I were the most beautiful raccoon-eyed girl he had ever seen.
     
    I want him to touch me again.  And again, and again, and again.  Because each time he does, I forget that I live east and he lives west. 
     
    When we are together, no matter where together is, his hands lead me home.

    • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

       Beautiful!

    • http://twitter.com/1stwordproblems Jeff Ellis

      This is awesome Wendy. I can relate to the character here, my girlfriend living on the east coast while I live on the west. 

      “Every kiss in my life had been practice for this one; and each kiss thereafter would have this one to live up to. I sank deeply and desperately into his arms, lost in the unfamiliarity of being found.”

      This paragraph in particular stands out. I love how well you say it’s the best kiss in the world, without just bluntly stating that. The second sentence steals the spotlight though. It has a poetry to it that I really enjoy. It’s fun to read and even more so to read out loud. The words roll right off the tongue. 

      Great practice!

      • wendy2020

        Jeff,

        Thank you so much.  It’s so cool to think of you reading it aloud.  Eveyone deserves to be kissed like that.  If not every day, then at least once.

        Good to know that you as a reader understood.

        Happy Monday.

        Wendy

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      I *love* this.  So vivid, drenched in love. ‘lost in the unfamiliarity of being found’ – wow…

      • wendy2020

        Aww, Zoe, thank you.  Just when I feel like I am writing in the middle of a void wasteland, you sprinkle some commentary that makes me feel like my dust matters. 

        How is your own writing?

    • Nikki

      This has such depth that I can feel your words within my own life. Your longing is complex, yet stunning. 

    • Mirelba

       beautiful piece.  thanks for sharing!

  • Ernest

    I long for a bright future; a future where the dreaded cloud of failure doesn’t cast its gloom over the landscape of my life, spreading murk over the sun of hope.

    I long for a blackbird to perch itself atop a bough and sing its sweet song to pull my decaying heart out of the abyss of darkness it is in.

    I long for my lover to hold my hands, intertwining her fingers in mine, looking at no one and thinking of nothing but me.

    I long for equanimity during strife. I long for the candour and the courage to tell the truth. I long for goodness of my repeatedly smashed heart so that it may not bow down to the world’s will and fill with hatred…..

    • wendy2020

      Wow, this is was dark but moving.  I read longing for lightness, and admittedly, I can relate.

      Very raw piece.  Thank you for opening yourself up like that.

      • Ernest

        !!  :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003275142062 Karen Jones

    What I am longing for? I am longing for someone to acknowledge me. For someone to say something, whether it be ” your shit”, or ” your not bad, keep going”. I long to be seen, to be heard. I long for a mentor. A honest mentor, that would tell me the truth. Make me sweat, cry, bleed for the right wording. Someone that will aid me in this dream I have had since I was a child. I want someone to scoop me up in their hands and show me the way. Say something to me! Let me know that I am alive. Is that how a writer knows they live? through acknowledgement? Yep, I believe it to be so. I pour out my heart to this horrible world, then I am ignored. Do I ignore others? No, I never do. I find myself not sleeping at night, feeling others pain. No one feels mine. I feel alone, I feel abandoned. Why? Is this the way God intended it? No, it’s not. 

    • Rana

      Great piece Karen! Wow every word resonates with what I have in my heart and mind. I long to be acknowledged like the way we were back in school when our teachers would encourage us for the smallest things we did. I learned to keep a journal back in middle school and it has helped my writing a lot. I’m still struggling to establish myself as a writer with literally no one around for guidance. But if you keep believing in yourself you’ll make it. I’m on the same path struggling, but it’s sweet.

    • wendy2020

      Wow, Helen.  What an interesting course this prompt took you on, and you consequently took us on.

      I admit to wondering something similar.  If I write something, and no one reads it, am I still a writer?  As much as I tell myself that exercises like these, and other forms of putting oneself out there, are for making me a better writer, feedback still feels like it, at least equally nourishes my creative spirit.

  • http://askaaronlee.com Aaron Lee

    I long to not be afraid. 
    Of what others perceived me. 

    I long to ignore
    Of all the negative feedbacks or who i am supposed to be. 

    I long to be me
    and not someone else, not what society thinks I should be. 

    I long to follow
    My heart and my soul. 

    I long to believe 
    In my passion and my dreams.
    and most importunely…. me

    (first time writing this, don’t have the best writing, sorry)

    • wendy2020

      I’d only change one sentence:  the one in parentheses that follows your post.

      …don’t have the best writing, sorry.

      Delete. Delete. Delete. 

      You wrote from your heart, and most importantly, you bravely put it out there.   Your poem was authentic and well done.  So following that longing and don’t apologize for it.  There is really no need.  :)

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      Glad you joined us!  Such transparency in your words, Aaron. And I really think that by posting this, you’re doing what you long for because it take a whole lot of courage to share your heart with others.

  • http://beckfarfromhome.blogspot.com/ Beck Gambill

    A cavernous ache has followed my heart around for years. Like death yawning for a victim, or the womb crying out for life. As the ocean hungrily laps the shore, never being filled. Indefinable, ever present, a hunger that gnaws at my bones. It’s on the tongue of every soldier in their darkest hour. On the mind of every bride.

    It’s the haunting that draws me on, begging to be answered. It’s the hope that my soul will one day find it’s rest. It’s why I believe. 

    I am the psalmists kindred, “Lord through every generation you have been our HOME.” Psalm 90

    • wendy2020

      Wow, what?  This really makes me think and question.  I feel am guessing what this is about, but not sure I am right?  That the soul longs and lives beyond the capability of our bodies?

      You created some great imagery… “death yawning for a victim”, “a hunger that gnaws at my bones”.

      Definitely felt your passion for your subject.

      • http://beckfarfromhome.blogspot.com/ Beck Gambill

        Hi Wendy. I probably was more enigmatic than necessary! It’s just what came out and I liked the way it felt. 

        I was writing about the heart’s longing for home. My blog is actually entitled Beck Far From Home. Home has been a longing of mine for my whole life. I’ve moved close to 20 times in the last 36 years. 

        Actually I have a hunch that the human life, in some ways, is a search for home. I think the Bible sheds light on that theory. One way the Bible can be summed up is humanity’s birth in the perfect home (as told in Genesis), home lost (through sin), God makes a way back home (through Jesus), man’s quest for home (humanity’s history), home realized (the end of the world, recreation of a new one and our life with God ever after, according to Revelation).  Perhaps a bit of a long explanation but a little of what was on my mind!

    • ryuuzaki

       I love this! It’s beautiful. The images and the different simple descriptions of what longing is are spot on in my opinion.

      (My first thought when I thought of longing was also a longing for home! I think from a song.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

    It was only a weed, a daisy-like flower sprouted in the crack in the pavement. Yet I could see how it came to be there, how some bird or critter scattered the seed into that spot of soil. I saw how it stretched and grew consumin’ the air, nourishment, and water it craved ‘til it burst into flower.

    He and I were like that flower. Like that one afternoon when sparks jumped between us and I knew and he knew how it’d be. Like our young love, newly wed, that only desired the next glimpse, the next touch, the next taste of each other. Like love fed and watered, which became a beautiful thing, a garden of pleasure and delight.

    An’ it swept over me. I pictured him as real as he ever was – his fingers runnin’ through his dark, wavy hair as he smoothed out the cowlick, which always formed over his ear; his eyes crinkled at the corners like they was wont to do when he laughed; the salty taste of his skin as he reached for me, his callused palm caressin’ my face. My eyes stung with the image, and I mourned through tear strung lashes the memories of my past.

    Bendin’ over at the waist, I plucked a flower from the weed and held it out before me. The scenes nearby faded away: the rows of flags reflected in the ebony stones, the people clustered around its base, the soldiers in their shiny uniforms pacin’ back and forth. My daughter wrapped her arm about me. My granddaughter stood at my feet. But it was he and I again and nothin’ before us but time and age and each other.

    The flower wilted in my hand, its stem curlin’ over my thumb, and the years passed between us. I pressed my fingertips to the cold wall and traced each letter of his name, each curve and angle a symbol of who he was then and who he remained to be. Then those forty-five years he’d been missin’ seemed like nothin’ at all. Nothin’ against the size of the space he occupied in my heart.

    My daughter squeezed my shoulder and laid her head against my cheek. “They’ll find him,” she said. “They’ll find him, Mama, and he’ll come home.”

    ‘An I believed her.

  • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

    Longing by Suzanne D. Williams

    It was only a weed, a daisy-like flower sprouted in the crack in the pavement. Yet I could see how it came to be there, how some bird or critter scattered the seed into that spot of soil. I saw how it stretched and grew consumin’ the air, nourishment, and water it craved ‘til it burst into flower.

    He and I were like that flower. Like that one afternoon when sparks jumped between us and I knew and he knew how it’d be. Like our young love, newly wed, that only desired the next glimpse, the next touch, the next taste of each other. Like love fed and watered, which became a beautiful thing, a garden of pleasure and delight.

    An’ it swept over me. I pictured him as real as he ever was – his fingers runnin’ through his dark, wavy hair as he smoothed out the cowlick, which always formed over his ear; his eyes crinkled at the corners like they was wont to do when he laughed; the salty taste of his skin as he reached for me, his callused palm caressin’ my face. My eyes stung with the image, and I mourned through tear strung lashes the memories of my past.

    Bendin’ over at the waist, I plucked a flower from the weed and held it out before me. The scenes nearby faded away: the rows of flags reflected in the ebony stones, the people clustered around its base, the soldiers in their shiny uniforms pacin’ back and forth. My daughter wrapped her arm about me. My granddaughter stood at my feet. But it was he and I again and nothin’ before us but time and age and each other.

    The flower wilted in my hand, its stem curlin’ over my thumb, and the years passed between us. I pressed my fingertips to the cold wall and traced each letter of his name, each curve and angle a symbol of who he was then and who he remained to be. Then those forty-five years he’d been missin’ seemed like nothin’ at all. Nothin’ against the size of the space he occupied in my heart.

    My daughter squeezed my shoulder and laid her head against my cheek. “They’ll find him,” she said. “They’ll find him, Mama, and he’ll come home.”

    ‘An I believed her.

  • Suzanne Williams

    Longing by Suzanne D. Williams

     It was only a weed, a daisy-like flower sprouted in the crack in the pavement. Yet I could see how it came to be there, how some bird or critter scattered the seed into that spot of soil. I saw how it stretched and grew consumin’ the air, nourishment, and water it craved ‘til it burst into flower.

    He and I were like that flower. Like that one afternoon when sparks jumped between us and I knew and he knew how it’d be. Like our young love, newly wed, that only desired the next glimpse, the next touch, the next taste of each other. Like love fed and watered, which became a beautiful thing, a garden of pleasure and delight.

    An’ it swept over me. I pictured him as real as he ever was – his fingers runnin’ through his dark, wavy hair as he smoothed out the cowlick, which always formed over his ear; his eyes crinkled at the corners like they was wont to do when he laughed; the salty taste of his skin as he reached for me, his callused palm caressin’ my face. My eyes stung with the image, and I mourned through tear strung lashes the memories of my past.

    Bendin’ over at the waist, I plucked a flower from the weed and held it out before me. The scenes nearby faded away: the rows of flags reflected in the ebony stones, the people clustered around its base, the soldiers in their shiny uniforms pacin’ back and forth. My daughter wrapped her arm about me. My granddaughter stood at my feet. But it was he and I again and nothin’ before us but time and age and each other.

    The flower wilted in my hand, its stem curlin’ over my thumb, and the years passed between us. I pressed my fingertips to the cold wall and traced each letter of his name, each curve and angle a symbol of who he was then and who he remained to be. Then those forty-five years he’d been missin’ seemed like nothin’ at all. Nothin’ against the size of the space he occupied in my heart.

    My daughter squeezed my shoulder and laid her head against my cheek. “They’ll find him,” she said. “They’ll find him, Mama, and he’ll come home.”

    ‘An I believed her.

    • http://thethoughtfulbuttonhook.wordpress.com/ Kittykattykaty

      I love this…it’s so sad, but I still love it. I love the analogies (if that is the word I want…maybe similarities?) between the touch she remembers and the touch of the flower curling round her thumb and the letters carved into the wall. Very nice!

      • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

         Thanks!

    • Marla4

       Beautiful and heartbreaking.  Great writing.

      • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

         Thanks so much!

    • wendy2020

      I love the weed/crack/sidewalk/flower imagery strung throughout.  I thought it was going to be about a relationship that soured, but if I follow correctly, turned out to be about how life went sour when he went missing?

      What dialect were you writing in? Southern?  I have a really hard time writing in a dialect, and sometimes a hard time reading it.  I think a great place to splash it in is in dialogue, more so than in narration, because then I don’t have to make sure that every single word I write matches the accent. 

      When she was tracing the letters, I really wanted to know his name.  You got me invested in the story, and hooked me.  Great job!

      • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

        Yes, it’s about a spouse missing in action. I have a fiction novel out to that effect, and I’m afraid there are still too many names missing. I write in Southern dialect a lot. It comes very naturally to me. I heard this story that way in my head, so I went with it. Glad you liked it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      Thanks for the feedback, Suzanne.  This was so moving, with so many beautiful lines how you used imagery.  Great piece.

      • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

         YW. And thanks for saying something about my piece. It was a good exercise in writing.

  • Jo Antareau

    I read the prompt, but had no time tow wirte until a few hours later, so this story was brewing for a while. I hope that it doesn’t count as cheating. Also, whenever I write about an emotion, I challenge myself to not name it in the passage.

    His tousled hair and tanned muscles were
    straight from Central Casting. Through the lens he was the eye-candy hero that
    made any female aged above twelve sigh. The camera loved him. My camera, in particular.
    His brown eyes flirted with my camera, with me. I went through miles of film,
    taking more shots than I would for any other model. Shirt on or off. Staring straight
    at the camera with a boyish twinkle. But most of all, looking past me, at a
    point on the horizon, deep eyes melancholic.  His trademark wistful gaze.

     

    When the photographic equipment was packed
    away, I drew my courage and asked him if he cared to join me for a drink – aren’t
    I the Modern Woman? He looked past me, and shook his head, a half smile on his
    lips. I smiled, and felt like the gawky sixteen year-old again. Why did I ever
    think a demi-god would ever be interested in me?

     

    I watched him walk away. He stopped, and
    turned, his eyes following my assistant, Andrew. He drew his breath in as
    Andrew waved to his fiancé and greeted her with a kiss.

     

    Now I knew where his pain came from.

    • Oddznns

      What a great quadrangle! Nice

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      I love how you wrote like a camera, showing us the perspective of the narrator, and holding back from the model’s view until the final cut.  Loved this.  

  • Suzanne Williams

    Longing by Suzanne D. Williams

    It was only a weed, a daisy-like flower sprouted in the
    crack in the pavement. Yet I could see how it came to be there, how some bird
    or critter scattered the seed into that spot of soil. I saw how it stretched
    and grew consumin’ the air, nourishment, and water it craved ‘til it burst into
    flower.

    He and I were like that flower. Like that one afternoon when sparks jumped between us and I knew and he knew how it’d be. Like our young love, newly wed, that only desired the next glimpse, the next touch, the next taste of each other. Like love fed and watered, which became a beautiful thing, a garden of pleasure and delight.

    An’ it swept over me. I pictured him as real as he ever was – his fingers runnin’ through his dark, wavy hair as he smoothed out the cowlick, which always formed over his ear; his eyes crinkled at the corners like they was wont to do when he laughed; the salty taste of his skin as he reached for me, his callused palm caressin’ my face. My eyes stung with the image, and I mourned through tear strung lashes the memories of my past.

    Bendin’ over at the waist, I plucked a flower from the weed and held it out before me. The scenes nearby faded away: the rows of flags reflected in the ebony stones, the people clustered around its base, the soldiers in their shiny uniforms pacin’ back and forth. My daughter wrapped her arm about me. My granddaughter stood at my feet. But it was he and I again and nothin’ before us but time and age and each other.

    The flower wilted in my hand, its stem curlin’ over my thumb, and the years passed between us. I pressed my fingertips to the cold wall and traced each letter of his name, each curve and angle a symbol of who he was then and who he remained to be. Then those forty-five years he’d been missin’ seemed like nothin’ at all. Nothin’ against the size of the space he occupied in my heart.

    My daughter squeezed my shoulder and laid her head against my cheek. “They’ll find him,” she said. “They’ll find him, Mama, and he’ll come home.”

    ‘An I believed her.

    • http://www.facebook.com/scw1217 Suzanne D Williams

       Sorry for the multiple posts. My computer went nuts on me. I hope you like the story.

  • IsabelleJane

    I am longing. Longing for my love to be returned. All my life I have kept busy, never concerned with earthly matters. Yes, I have  had a few  lustful ‘moments’ and yes I have suffered for them too but this time…this time  it’s ‘different’ and new.

    My love is now a quarter of the way around the world and never to return. We were in such close quarters but we never really touched. I respected that…I was longing for the day that he would wake-up to my beauty. He, now a quarter of the way around the world doesn’t know what he wants..longing is a distant dawn for him I suspect.

    For a while after he left I was angry and confused, my head blocked from my heart and my heart from my head, and ,then, it dawned, my longing contacted me…my longing felt the well-spring of love that was always there through difficult times.

    I know I love him now and it took a separation to find that out….but is he longing for me or just sunny climes?

    Does not knowing make the longing stronger? ordoes it strengthen the ties that bind?

    I guess I will find out  in time.

  • Oddznns

    I’m a cup overflowing with longing. I’m using this prompt to develop a character though. So here it is, so not me.

    I’ve never been one for longing. It takes too much, carrying aroun that possibility of paradise if only … that horrible despondency that might come if not …

    I’d rather plan for what I know I can have, set goals I know I can attain.

    Of late though, I’ve begun to feel that maybe there could be more between Jeremy and me. Or, to be exact, that there had been more. 

    I can’t put a name to what it was.
    It would be nice though, to have it back. 

    • Marla4

       Well now I want to read your story.  I love the line that reads, “that there had been more.”  Now I’m all in.  Tell me more.

    • wendy2020

      Love how this character can be matter of fact in one sentence and a dreamer the next.  I love how you name her object of affection.  For some reason, this made me connect with your story more.

      Great length of sentences and phrasing, which led to good pacing!  Well done.

  • Lorraine Martin

    He catches me staring at him, but I don’t hold his gaze as you see in the movies.  Nope, I look away almost as soon as he sees me.  When I look back, he is back to his conversation with his buddy.

    I look back down at my book, trying to appear interested.  Five minutes past before I realized I wasn’t reading a word.  The longing to feel good enough to catch Mark’s attention held my mind captive.  I would never be productive if I sat here, within ten feet of the object of my desire, without being able to obtain it.  I slapped my book shut, the sound reverberating horribly throughout the room.  Red faced, I glance in Mark’s direction and to add to my embarrassment, he is now looking my way again.  This time, he smiles.  

    Oh no!  I can’t take it.  I can feel the heat flowing up through my neck and into my cheeks.  It figures, the one time I can’t look away from him is the one time I am scarlet and glistening with inadequacy.  I flick him a tiny smile and shrug, as if to say, “Woops, sorry I interrupted your important sports conversation.  It’ll never happen again.”  

    I toss my bag over my shoulder and hurry away, slamming my thigh into the table’s edge as I turn.  I don’t even stop to massage away the pain.  I just want to be alone.  Where two minutes ago, I was longing to be sitting next to Mark, pretending to be interested in baseball, I now simply long to be as far away from him as possible.  

    I emerge into the darkness of the street and finally have a chance to stop and still my racing heart.  I prop myself on the wide banister of the massive marble stairs and begin rubbing my bruised thigh.  I’m consumed with shame and pain as I wait for the bus.  

    I absorb the distant drunken chants of weekend party-goers then, much closer, the soft, tentative cough from behind me.  The longing is back.

  • Mollie

    (sorry, it’s not 15 minutes!)

    But great challenge, Joe!
    Longing for Hope

    My
    thumb strokes the screen of my phone like it’s my one beautiful
    treasure.  I swallow the dry and dusty air and blink for a few seconds
    to clear my vision.  I adjust my neck and watch the steam rise off the
    horizon.  My eyes squint at the blinding brightness of the wet road and I
    gaze at the shimmering black pavement as the water vanishes in all it’s
    trickery.  
    Why won’t he call?  I ask, I beg.  Surely it will be now.
     Now that it’s night and he’s tired from the day.  Just before he lies
    down on his cot, before he takes off his boots, before he closes his
    eyes.  
    I close my own, praying, praying, praying that it’s not the last time.  
    I
    wish hope would swell in my soul like the sweet song of a robin as the
    sunrises.  I wish I could feel reassurance that, even if he doesn’t call
    today, tomorrow, or the next day, he could.
     But as I open my eyes again and sigh at the monotony of the road, all I
    feel is a coldness creeping inside my heart.  Perspiration runs down my
    brow and I wipe it away from my eyes.  It should be tears, not salty
    sweat.
    Instead
    of replacing my sunglasses, I throw them into the seat next to me and
    squint out at the never, ever ending brightness.  This is what it’s like
    out there where he is.  
    All dirt and dust and death.  
    The rise in the rode sparkles with the mirage of water.  The sweat trickles down like tears.  
    I
    press the button and the windows roll down, the wind washing over me
    and whipping at my hair.  I reach for a rubber band to tie it back and
    remember that I threw them all away the day after I met him.  ‘Your hair
    looks great,’ he said, ‘don’t put it up.  Let the wind play with it; it
    won’t blow away.’
    A wave of nausea rises in my throat and I press my hands into the steering wheel.  
    Why won’t he call?  Can he call?  
    I curl my toes in angst and beat my hand on the steering wheel.  
    ‘He’s not going to,’ I tell myself.  ‘Why would he anyway? We’re just friends.’  
    I
    convince my muscles into relaxation, but my heartbeat still throbs
    away.  Just friends.  Does he know that my heart beats for him?
    How
    could I not love him?  He who sits alone, out of place, his distant
    eyes purged with sorrow and hurt.  He who laughs and breaks a smile at
    every joke, afraid his pain will break through.  He who lives through
    death over and over and over.  A year, a month; eighteen months, then
    six; so often gone that he calls fear a comfort, death a casualty,
    desolation his home.  Today could have been his last; he could be at
    rest for eternity.
    With
    one last sigh, I slip my phone into my purse and watch the sun drop
    lower and lower and lower until it barely touches the horizon.  The
    desert wasteland is golden in its glow and in the distance I see the
    glints of metal.  The outskirts of the city?
    I reach for my phone when it buzzes and I pray, not looking at the screen.  
    ‘Hello?’
    My heart races in anticipation and I can feel the beats in my ears.  My
    eyes scan the lights, hoping it’s a city.  But the buildings are so
    alone, so hazy.  A mirage?
    ‘Hello?’
    I repeat.  Is it him?  The number is Unknown.  Him?  ‘Hello? Is someone
    there?’  Please.  Be there.  ‘Hello?’  Once more, hoping, longing,
    knowing.
    I wait until the other end hangs up and the phone drones like the loss of heartbeat on an ECG.  
    As the sun dies in a sea of crimson and violet, the lights of the city vanish.  
    I adjust my lights and take a breath as night takes the throne.
    The sounds of silence, of breathing, of the life that bore the heat of day crawling out into the cool of the desert.
    He won’t call…but he could.  I blink away the tears.  He can.  He has to open his eyes.
    I squeeze my phone then let it slip into my lap.
    Over the horizon I see a light.
    In my heart, I know it’s true.
    First, one, as miniscule and dainty as a star.  Now seven, eighty, a hundred, thousands.
    He will.  He will wake.
    I smile.  I hope.
    Over
    the horizon fell the sun.  Around the earth to where he rests his head.
     His eyes closed in sleep.  He will open them with the morning.
    As the lights of the city flood my view, I let the tiny beam of hope fill my heart.

    • Marla4

       Your detail and heartbreak and hope are amazing.  Such intricate work.  So beautiful.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      Beautiful description and such strong emotion in this.  I love the setting of the desert too, ties in nicely with one of last week’s posts!

  • http://twitter.com/1stwordproblems Jeff Ellis

    This took me more than fifteen minutes. Because I’m a cheater.

    He sat in a shady corner of his cell, staring at the sunlight punching through the window cut into the stone. If he stood on his slop bucket, he could touch the lip of it with his fingertips. There were no bars that would keep him from climbing through it. The warden had mentioned it during his orientation.

    “Freedom is there,” he had said and pointed to the window. “Should you ever want it.”

    A yellow-faced verdin flew into the cell and looped once around before returning to the mouth of the window to chirp at him. Corso groaned.

    “A mockingbird would have been more appropriate…,” he said to no one in particular.

    The bird flew away at the sound of his voice. He frowned and eased into the crook of the walls. They held him like a mother. Like his mother. He slumped to his side and reached a hand out of the shade to rest on the hot stones of his cell floor. It burnt. Appropriately.

    His mother. He wondered if she knew where he was. If they had told her what he had done. More than Lyssa, more than his sons, he wanted to see his mother. At least he did today. In the end, all he really wanted was a taller bucket. 

    • Lisa Roberts

      Jeff, first off let me say I appreciate your honesty… ;-)
      As for your piece, I thought it was quite good.  I like how you wrote of longing without actually using the word specifically.  Your sketch draws upon the universal theme of wanting your mother when you are suffering or in despair.  It also left me wondering what put Corso in prison (?).  I wanted to read more.  Good work…

      • Jeff Ellis

        Thanks for the kind words Lisa :) Honestly, I’m wondering what put Corso in prison myself. Maybe I’ll write more on this character in the future.

        (Couldn’t log in with my usual twitter account because I’m at work, haha)

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      You cheater. 

      Great practice, though Jeff. Is this part of a larger work? It sounds like a fun story.

      • http://twitter.com/1stwordproblems Jeff Ellis

        Thanks Joe! I wrote this specifically for the practice, but I might write more on it some day :)

    • wendy2020

      Love the character name: Corso.

      Not sure I get how freedom is his if he ever wants it?  Is this some kind of bargain deal?  Or is there just a threat of being shot if he ever tries to escape?  Or the bucket just tall enough from him to grasp the escape, but never actually own it?

      I liked the bird and temperature references.  Built the setting of the cell very well.  Good writing.

      • http://twitter.com/1stwordproblems Jeff Ellis

        Thanks for the compliments Wendy :) I’m really happy with the name Corso as well.

        As to what the warden says to him during his orientation, it was meant to be mockery. The window has no bars on it, meaning he could just crawl through it, but it’s too high for him to reach. It’s a form of torture, similar to the Sky Cells in Martin’s Game of Thrones.

        The last line remarks “all he really wanted was a taller bucket,” because of this fact.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      Great writing!  ’Freedom is there… should you ever want it’ – what a line.

  • Rana

    I long for a getaway, an escape from the mundane life of the city. I long to be surrounded with the beauty of nature. I long to hear the sound of waterfall flowing peacefully, birds enjoying freedom and singing their songs. I used to long to sit by the beach and watch the sunset go beyong the horizon, but in the past few years my connection with the sea changed a lot. Every year I hear about people who lose their lives by the same source I used enjoy sitting near. My longing has changed for a safer place where I my feet can stand firmly on the ground. I long to hug my two sisters, and one brother who are away from home. I yearn for peace in my country, a safe and beautiful sky not tainted by drones and F-16s. When I think of the things I long for, the list almost becomes endless.

    • Marla4

       This is spare and lovely and made me want to read more.

    • wendy2020

      You make me wonder about her history (is it a she? I read it as such) and where she is.  And how people lost their lives at sea?  Through battle?  Piracy? As refugees that never make it?

      It makes my longing feel pretty small when dones and F-16s are more constant than songbirds.

  • http://lauraplusthevoices.blogspot.com/ Laura W.

    “I want to see mountains again, Gandalf — mountains.”

    Perhaps that’s the real reason I chose to attend a little college in a little town cupped in the Shenandoah Valley. Even though I could “climb every mountain” and “ford every stream” in sight of my dorm and probably not break a sweat. The Appalachians of Virginia are rolling and blue and beautiful — the bones of a mighty prehistoric range higher than the Himalayas — but they’ve got nothing on the Alps of my childhood.

    In that way, I suppose they are like my childhood. Remnants of soaring dreams ground down by time. Snow-capped heights across a cold and impassible ocean. Rock and wilderness and darkness under deep pine, where meeting elves and fairies and wooden men was still within the realm of possibility. 

    Untamed. Mountains still vibrant with the sound of music. Mountains whose voices have not yet been smothered, who will never fall silent.

    I long to wander off the trail eating bushes upon bushes of wild mountain raspberries.

    I long to ski down a black diamond with the fearlessness of a child, kissing the wind.

    I long to build fairy huts in the woods again.

    I even long for the humor of taking a shit behind a woodpile halfway up a trail, miles from a bathroom and always alert to the danger of surprise attacks by spiders.

    I long to attend services at the tiny white church that gleams on the summit.

    I long to be struck to tears by beauty again.

    I long to revisit the mountains of my childhood.

  • http://thewritepractice.com/ John Fisher

    The river from that high bank on his uncle’s place, and the sense from his deepest animal being that his time was infinite and that his generation really would change the world.  

    Alone in the backseat of the family sedan, her smile and the glint in her eyes as she leaned closer and murmured, “Prove it.”

    The ability to cry easily and without embarrassment.

    The rich goodness of American southern gospel music, the belief in a heaven where all of it would be put right by and by.

    The black poodle puppy who bonded with him who-knows-why and loved him without reserve until the day she died sixteen years later, grey-haired and no longer able to walk on her hind legs from one end of the house to the other.

    The chance to be someone else.

    Their romance before they had to go and get married.

    The conversation of that  night, unfinished, irretrievable — final.

    • Marla4

       My gosh, this is gorgeous.  And the poodle killed me, the way dogs can.  I love this.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      Beautiful.

  • AJ Wagoner

    I kind of took more than fifteen minutes, but here is the poem that resulted from the prompt:

    http://ajwagoner.com/2012/09/14/for-the-world/

  • Jamie257

    When I was young, I dreamed of being a bride.  I wore the dress-up costume and lace curtain as a veil and wanted more than anything to be a beautiful bride. When I became a bride, although not beautiful, I felt uncomfortable, cavorting about my church in front of my family and friends as well as people I had never met or heard of.  I desired marriage like the thirsty desire water; I wanted to be a complete person, loved by someone for myself, not because of some kind of familial tie. That tie can bind! After a while, I desired a date. I think more than meeting someone, I wanted to get ready for the date, I wanted to wallow in the preparation for that guy who would come to my house, ring the bell, and be happy to see me. I desired a movie with coffee afterward. Of course, my coffee came with a wedge of pie. I did not gain weight then, nor did the caffeine keep me awake or jittery. Years later, I desire that wonderful date, and all that preparation before it. And most of all, I desire leaving that date at the door and going about my life — until the next date and the next. Come to think of it, I think I could be quite the single person again. …

    • http://thethoughtfulbuttonhook.wordpress.com/ Kate

      This made me smile…I thought of that phrase “be careful what you wish for”…I like the way you haven’t actually said you changed your mind, but it is obvious from the text.

  • Peggyoung

    I used to long for the perfect man, the man I would recognize immediately as my soul mate, the answer to my loneliness, the man who complimented my finer points and I his. The problem was that I did recognize him. I recognized him everywhere. I even married him; I married him three times. It was never the same man I recognized “as him”, but always a different face, a different profession, each time a completely different person. I would swoon at his feet. I would act coy. I would put on my smartest face. I would stumble all over myself to be seen, to be noticed, to make him love me. I found them all lovable, amazingly good-looking and kind. Each evening, alone, I thought over their words and the cute way they smiled at me, looking for evidence of their love for me. I would write in my journal: “Steve really is the nicest guy, I really do love that guy; I wonder if Dave will call me tonight, we had the best time last night; Jack just had a controlling mother, he’s got to sort a few things out, he will see that we are perfect together.” Sometimes it would be years between this one and that one but other times it was only one day from one love to the next. My first marriage lasted less than two years, my second five years.

    The truth is that I really was falling in love with the same guy over and over again. The guy I fell in love with was the one that made me work for his affections the same way that my Dad did. I fell in love the final time on the day Dad died, this time to a man who loved me back in the same way I loved him, openly and freely, no reservations. My third marriage is forever.

    • wendy2020

      You really captured the longing for completeness.  My take is that maybe you weren’t for a guy to complete you, just someone who thought you were completely enough ‘as-is’.  Or maybe I am just talking about me…

      Very emotional writing…

  • http://twitter.com/pootlesuzie Suzie Gallagher

    Jeremy set the open bottle of wine down on the table with a thud. “Prove it!” and turned on his heels slamming the door behind him.
    She longed for a drink so much, did she love Jeremy enough to keep away from it? She did her “flylady” chores finishing with the kitchen sink and began the “keep the Va va voom in your marriage” chores. She spent longer with these, to prove to herself as much as Jeremy that she was all-in. In high heels and matching jewellery she was prepared.
    The bottle sat, being red its aroma was beginning to pervade the room. She opened a window but moths came in so she tried to shut it. Weird things happen, and this was weird. As she leaned over the sofa to close the window her necklace caught in the faux brown leather whilst her stiletto heel banged into the table knocking the wine bottle which shattered on the Moroccan marble tiles, her head jerked up and in some crazy twist of fate, she landed face down in the pool of wine and glass.
    Jeremy came home at midnight to find his bride of less than six months sprawled lifeless in a puddle of bloody wine. The coroner said her skull instantaneously fractured on impact with the tile. There were no toxicology reports available. Jeremy spent the rest of his life believing she drank herself into a stupor and tripped. He longed for closure but it never came

    • http://beckfarfromhome.blogspot.com/ Beck Gambill

      That’s so sad! Desire seems to torment more than satisfy, whether for an object or a person.

      • http://twitter.com/pootlesuzie Suzie Gallagher

        thanks Beck

    • Marla4

       Oh my gosh.  I thought this was going to be funny and then the twist.  This is great.  Tell an Arkansas girl what flylady chores are.  I love that term!

      • http://twitter.com/pootlesuzie Suzie Gallagher

        okay there is this woman I discovered years ago on tinternet (lancashire for on the internet) and I used her tips to declutter my house and then I let her go.
        Last week I found her again – her main thing is shine your sink and the next is  - it didn’t take 15 minutes to make your house a mess so just touch it little by little and it will become clean again.
        http://www.flylady.net
        Marla I bet your house is peachy clean!

    • wendy2020

      Love a good twist, and this definitely had it.

      I’d change one sentence slightly…. insted of “so she tried to shut it”, I would indicate that she went back to close it. or something else that doesn’t indicate upfront that the shutting won’t work.

      The resistance of her longing led to a lifelong longing of his.  Very poetic, and yet still a very strong story.

      Very good piece of writing!

  • Kate

    LONGING
    ~ 15 min practice

    I’ve
    been seeing and learning and feeling for sixty-five years now – to some it’s a
    very long time, this lifetime.  But, for
    the first time in my seemingly short-lived life, I’ve begun to remember many
    things that I will never experience again. 
    I long for the feeling of that first meaningful kiss, the invisible hand
    that reaches deep inside me and touches feelings not aware of until that
    kiss.  How wonderful it would be to realize
    once again that I am in love, and all of the possibilities and experiences
    before me with this very special human being. 
    His illusive smell, unexplainable, that made my head swoon and want
    more.  I long for that first touch of his
    hand to mine, that feels differently than any other, it feels genuine, like
    love.  I lie next to him now, and
    sometimes I can smell that essence that was his when we were young, it takes me
    back to that carefree time when we both thought that we’d live forever.  I long for those nights when we lay in bed til
    the sun rises, talking and planning our lives together.    

    • Oddznns

      That elusive smell, unexplainable, that mad my head swoon and want more… It’s odd how it fades with age doesn’t it. You expressed exactly what I’ve been longing for.   So well written, that wanting for youth that creeps up on one as we get older. I like that line about “my seemingly short life” too. It really underlines the aging.

  • Missaralee

    O Heart of mine, telling me what I would not hear. Screaming that yes of course I know what to do, but my mind won’t make itself up. You ba bump bump and send me dreams and visions of the one I would long for. Of the angelic face that breaks your rhythm and tears your walls. You say “there, there he is, say something, run to him” but no, the Mind has no heart of its own and shuts out Heart’s cries.
    In the labyrinth of my Mind I am convinced that I could never deserve him. That he is far above me, far too good for me. Its byzantine circuits find it easier to settle on a boy of no gentlemanly learning than to believe in the possibility of fire. But you, my Heart know how to burn. And you would gladly do so, bathing all the world in a rosy hue.But oh, my brains are too clever for their own good. That grey matter would turn all the world to grey and in that monocromatic world of the possible and the likely, the Mind would sit with its quick fingers on the trigger of the fire extinguisher, ready to douse any unseemly sparks.

    • BronsonOquinn

      I love your imagery. Such abstract thoughts and ideas are hard to visualize, but you made it possible. Great job!

      • Missaralee

        Thanks Bronson!

    • http://thewritepractice.com/ John Fisher

      Very apt description of the conflict between emotional and rational — and the questionable sense that we’re not really competent unless the unsentimental “grey matter” wins out, is the guard with its “quick finger on the trigger of the fire extinguisher, ready to douse any unseemly sparks”.  I would think this would resonate with many readers!

    • http://beckfarfromhome.blogspot.com/ Beck Gambill

      I love the feel of this piece, the fight and the imagery. It has a different flavor than most of your pieces that I recall. More like poetry. Your word choices are interesting too and make me think, tears your walls, no gentlemanly learning, byzantine circuits, douse any unseemly sparks. They give an old fashioned flair.

    • Jo Antareau

      This reminds me of a poem by Emily Dickinson which starts:  Heart – we will forget him!

    • Aisling

      I really enjoyed this, especially the last bit about the mind dousing the heart – it was all evocative, but the final few lines were beautiful!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Denise-Golinowski/1535448014 Denise Golinowski

     

    It wasn’t planned. Not really. I was just out taking a walk,
    down along the beach, taking in the day. The waves here on the bayside were
    just tickling the shore, soft shushing sounds above the slap of my flip flops
    on the sidewalk. Sunlight poured over me the same as it had before, though now,
    my shadow stretched itself in front of me, alone. The gulls overhead floated on
    the breeze, their voices echoing the ache in my chest.

     

    And then I heard it. A laugh. A deep chuckling that rumbled
    out of a barrel chest and poured like acid over my bruised heart.

     

    “Funny meeting you here,” he said.

     

    I looked up, and up again. I had to shield my eyes against
    the sunlight glinting on his sun-streaked hair and sunglasses. “Oh,
    hi.”

     

    Brilliant!

     

    He gestured to the woman at his side, her smile filled with innocent
    humor. She leaned against him and asked. “Are you an islander or a
    tourist?”

     

    I brushed at my faded shorts. “Islander.”

     

    She gestured to the shoreline. “It must be wonderful
    living here all the time.”

     

    I glanced at him again. “It can get a little lonely,
    but yes, mostly it’s wonderful.”

     

    “Guess we’ll be seeing you around,” he said in
    that casual way that meant he didn’t expect it to happen.

     

    “Yeah,” I replied, and added, to her. “Enjoy
    your stay.”

     

    They continued on their way and I stayed where I was,
    listening to their quiet voices until the words were washed away beneath the
    suss-suss of the waves. But nothing could wash away the wish that he’d stayed.
    With me.

    • April Judson

      This is really good, i was longing to read a bit more – well done.

    • Mollie

       I love the description ‘suss-suss’ of the waves.  Nicely written.

    • http://thethoughtfulbuttonhook.wordpress.com/ Kate

      I love this! I love the ‘ soft shushing sounds above the slap of my flip flops
      on the sidewalk’ ..i heard it in my head when i read it. I also LOVED the fact that she brushed her shorts when asked if she was a tourist or an islander…like she was embarrassed…loved it!

    • wendy2020

      The dialogue was so spot on.  I don’t know if it is, word for word, an actual conversation that took place, but it felt so true.

      My favorite:

      Guess we’ll be seeing you around,” he said in that casual way that meant he didn’t expect it to happen.

      So relatable.

      Very cleanly written and intricately woven.

  • Lisa Roberts

    I long for the times when you were never very far and the warmth of your skin felt like an extension of my own, the crook of my arm your favorite resting place.  Back then I could discern your thoughts and desires by the tone of your cry, the subtle expression on your soft round face.  It was all so simple back then when your sweetly curled head had to tilt back to gaze into my eyes.  

    As you grew and words took the place of mysterious gurgles and expressions, I was helpless to prevent that first disconnect.  No longer needing me to read you I watched the years flatten the rhythm of our sacred dance, transforming it into something stilted and awkward.  Instead of walking, you ran, often away from me or anyone who would dare demand you comply with anything other than your own agenda.  And yet, occasionally a skinned knee, a runny nose, a bruised ego would send you back into my arms again.  I longed for those moments.  Although you physically grew bigger, in a strange way my heart saw you get smaller, the way one sees a silhouette as it walks down a long road at sunset.  Smaller and smaller until eventually it is no longer visible.  As if it has vanished into thin air.

    Now nearly a grown man, I tilt my head back to look into your face, angular and rough with angry acne and emerging whiskers.  Your needs and desires are a mystery to me now.  Who are you little boy?  Where did you go?  I long to know you again…

    • http://twitter.com/1stwordproblems Jeff Ellis

      This is really well done, Lisa. 

      I love the transition of the first paragraph into the second. I’ve never thought about how the intuitive connection of parent and baby could be severed by the development of speech, and essentially a child’s growing ability to choose what they share with you.

      I do think the second paragraph runs on a bit and shaving it down could help keep the overall precision of the piece, but other than that I was really impressed by this practice. I’m obviously not a mom, and yet I felt a real connection with this, which speaks volumes about how well it’s written.

    • Mollie

       So beautiful, so true.
      Nicely written.

    • Oddznns

      How this makes me miss my babies too, all much taller than me now. Thank you for this Lisa.

    • Jo Antareau

      Oh, well done! That was exquisite.
      As my sons are still small, I see that as a vision of the future…

    • wendy2020

      The longing for being a “mommy” instead of a just the mom in his life is definitely well communicated.

      Loved the grouping of skinned knee, runny nose and bruised ego together.

      Just purely grammatically, a couple of modifiers had me reading the sentence again.

      “Now a nearly grown man, I tilt…”  I think you meant that to refer to your son, but at first it jumped me to thinking you were actually a dad.

      Agree with Jim about sharpening some of the tempo.  Beautiful as is, but I think it could be just as heart-felt if the strongest words stood more on their own.  ie:  I watched the years flatten the rhythm of our sacred dance into something awkward and stilted, reads more powerfully to me without the added description.  Just my opinion, but that was a line I really latched onto, and read really well.

      I am a mom whose kids still call me mommy, but already I feel the simultaneous pull on me and away from me.  Sounds like it both sneaks up on you and happens suddenly.  Thank you for sharing your insight.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      Great writing.  You open up one of the heartaches of being a mom and make it real to those who aren’t.   I love this –  ’I watched the years flatten the rhythm of our sacred dance, transforming it into something stilted and awkward.’  

  • Duncanann4

     When will they get home? Why have they been gone so long? This girl only comes by every few hours takes me out to go to the bathroom and sometimes takes me out to play. Man my hips hurt. I have to pee every half hour and she comes by every three. Thankfully it dries on the kitchen floor so no one notices. 
    When will my people be home? Why have they been gone so long? Do they miss me at all? Oh look, shoes, they belong to my lady. She’s one of my people. She loves to snuggle and pet me and throw the ball for me. This girl who comes by takes me out to play and is more excited to go inside than anyone I know. I’m fifteen years old, had a stroke, am blind it one eye and am deaf, but I love to go outside. She’s still a pup for crying out loud, she should love being outside. It’s the best, well it was the best.
    When will my people be home? Why have they been gone so long? Am I stuck with this girl forever? Maybe if I act like I’m in pain she will take me to the vet and they’ll put me on some great pain killers then time will go by a little quicker. Man my hips hurt. BALL! Playing inside? Really? It’s not even raining. Look I’m in pain, fake the limp, who am I kidding she doesn’t notice. Fine, I’ll play inside, but it’s going to cost you. You know those Toms you just bought? I hope you want holes in them. I may be fifteen but I still love to chew stuff. 
    When will they get home? Why have they been gone so long?

    • Missaralee

      Aww, poor puppy. Great use of his perspective to express longing!
      I laughed at the line about the girl who just wants to be inside. I guess she can’t get a good wifi signal in the yard. The dog’s worry for his people to come back gave me this ominous feeling that maybe they wouldn’t be coming home at all…

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Ha! That’s hilarious.

    • Oddznns

      Aw. This is funny. I was wondering why he was fifteen and had a stroke!

  • Scmathisen

    The Longing

    In
    the middle of the night was when it was at its worst. The rest of the day it
    could be blocked out with work, play or other activities that kept my mind
    occupied. But it was still there, in the back of my mind, capturing my senses…needing
    to be fought off.

    Today
    has been totally different. I didn’t think about it at all for most of the
    morning. I was totally absorbed in getting a new project off the ground. I was
    in and out of meetings with my co-workers, consulting with my boss and totally,
    completely engrossed in ferreting out the details of the implementation. I was
    having a fantastic, finally free day.

    And
    then, it happened! An aroma drifted into my work area from some cubicle,
    somewhere else on the floor. My nose actually twitched at the first hint of the
    smell. I tried hard to block it out. I was determined not to give in. Then my
    legs began to feel restless and my stomach began to gurgle in just the
    slightest, smallest way. Soon it had captured my mind and I began to
    capitulate.

    First,
    I sat up straight and looked out the window. Then I grabbed my freshly filled coffee
    cup and put my nose near hoping to drown out its aroma with that of the coffee.
    Instead of driving out the unwanted smell, it combined with it and brought back
    the scent memories. Then I closed my eyes trying to think of some remote beach
    somewhere out there where these smells wouldn’t reach me.

    I
    found myself on my feet, searching, hunting for the source of the aroma. I
    turned the corner of a not too distant row of cubicles and there it was. Or at
    least there it had been, three people were just finishing them off with their
    own coffee. They saw me. They smiled, waved and told me I was too late. They
    had eaten them all. I smiled and waved back before turning and walking slowly
    back to my desk.

    As
    I walked slowly back, an urge began to build up in me. I had been fighting this
    urge for a long time but, at this moment, I could resist it no more. From the
    coat rack, I grabbed my hat and coat and then I headed toward the door.

    Resistance
    was futile. I was going to get my own fresh, hot maple bar with bacon on top.

    • Missaralee

      Mmmm, now I’m longing for maple and bacon. I read this piece just before lunch and I think it’s actually what sent me out the door to get lunch! Speaking of maple, you wouldn’t be a fellow canuck, would you?

      • Scmathisen

        Thanks, Missaralee. Not a canuck but I do live very close to BC.  Glad you enjoyed it and hope you had a great lunch!

  • Plumjoppa

     
    I long for horses, apple orchards, old
    cemeteries, dry creek beds, child’s forts, and hard-packed paths in
    the forest. I long for the silo with the cement wall where we ran in
    quick circles until we fell into the fermented hay. I long for the
    cow skull and our roadside museum with the dead bat and the fungus
    off the tree. I long to find newborn kittens again, wedged into a
    pocket between hay bales. I long to smell hay and cow dung, dust and
    tractor oil.

    I long for one day accountable to no
    one, off the grid, lost on a mountain path, granola in pack, sketch
    book, paper, pencil, watercolor splash. I long for tiredness that
    comes from exertion outside, climbing and pushing, not fixing and
    weatherproofing.

    I long for babies, still fatty and
    fresh. I long for the the perfumed head and warm formless weight of
    them, molded to the skin of my neck. I long for the closeness, the
    tugging, the need, the slowing down of it all.

    • Marla4

      This is beautiful!

      • Plumjoppa

         Thanks Marla, I heard a rendition of “Country Roads” this morning, and it brought me back.

    • http://unknownjim.com/ Jim Woods

      I really like the flow and spacing of this. I really enjoyed the 1st two paragraphs as they gave me a sense of freedom and wonder. The third one is really good too, but it doesn’t seem to fit as well as the other two. The first two paragraphs seem to flow seamlessly together. 

      I think it would be really cool to have a picture of the country with the first paragraph (or two) underneath. 

      • Plumjoppa

         Thanks for all of the encouraging comments! 

    • http://lauraplusthevoices.blogspot.com/ Laura

      Gorgeous writing!

    • Mollie

       Absolutely beautiful!

    • Lisa Roberts

      The pace of this drops you right into a slow country day and help the reader walk right beside you.

    • Jo Antareau

      How beautiful and evocative!

    • Marla4

       I love the line about kittens.  This is so good.  Almost like a song.

    • wendy2020

      You have some created some really great imagery.  My favorite is:  I long for tiredness that comes from exertion outside, climbing and pushing, not fixing and weatherproofing.

      Sounds like you long for the simpler life, without overtly stating it.  Good work!

  • Marla4

    I took the Xanax first, and I chased it with gin.  I wanted to feel the way I did when I was
    with you, when we lay beneath the shifting light of the sugar maple, awash in
    fall.  On those days, on the quilt so old
    the red had faded to pink, the black to gray, and I traced your lips with my
    finger. I traced the ring of white where your wedding ring should have been but
    wasn’t, tossed as it was into the ashtray of your Tahoe on your way to meet
    me.  I ran my own finger around the pale
    circle of your skin like it was a map of what would make me whole.

    I am loopy now, dulled by the drug, sated by the
    liquor.  I doesn’t work, this ceremony of
    spirits.  I don’t feel electric the way I
    did when you pulled me to you. This thing I liked best was not how it made me
    feel but the way I must have felt to you. 
    My tight muscles, my small waist, my hair like a dangerous road you lost
    your fingers in.

    When the phone rang on those risky days, I held it to my
    heart before answering it.  The rap on my
    back door sent shards of light through me. 
    I’d open it at odd hours of the early morning, not having slept, dressed
    in feathery gowns and sharp heels and I’d lead you in, your destiny there in my
    bedroom, I thought, and I’d undress you, the taut lashes of your shoes a
    challenge always.

    I think of you now, how the light caught sorrow sometimes as
    we moved together, because there was always light – the sun, the bedside lamp,
    the moon. I shunned it the way you do the homeless man with a spray bottle and
    a dirty rag who runs to your car when the traffic light shows red.  It came back, of course, the sad moments, the
    secret held between us, and you were not equal to it, and you sank back into
    your ordinary life.

    I drive by your house, a predictable Tudor. The front door
    has been painted turquoise, there’s a cozy covering your trash can, and the wreath
    on your door is gaudy with fall leaves and shiny baubles.  Your wife must be a Pinterest addict, I
    think.  She must log on, crazed by the
    possibilities of quippy sayings like “Keep calm and drink a pumpkin spice
    latte.” She must stay up late, pretending that an organized pantry is the same
    thing as a good marriage.

    If I were her, I’d kick it up a notch.  I’d take a drink now and then.  I’d read “Fifty Shades of Grey” and buy a
    whip.  I might even leave you, like you
    left me.  I might throw away my glue gun
    and the twelve feather boas I bought at the Dollar Tree and hit the road.  It would unfurl, it would, full of
    possibilities, like a fresh notebook on the first day of school, like a heart
    before it’s ever been broken.
     

    • http://twitter.com/pootlesuzie Suzie Gallagher

      Marla i love this, I had to put on “Blanket on the Ground” while I read it and I know it isn’t quite the right sentiment but it just shrieked at me possibly by “country Roads”. 

      All I sang today was Rock of Ages!

      • Marla4

         Suzie, I love your replies!  You always say the kindest things.  I love “Blanket on the Ground.”  And “Rock of Ages.”  Last night I got to hear Alan Jackson, and I felt like I’d been blessed.

    • wendy2020

      Marla,  okay, you slayed me with the line where pretending that an organized pantry is the same as a good marriage.  And you didn’t just stop at reading reading 50 shades, but adding a whip into the mix of changes was so flippantly cool.  Also love that she/you drove by the house, and found it unsurprising.

      Makes me wonder why he left you… or if he is just that kind of guy.  Sad but funny story, and I am glad you shared it and glad I read it.

      • Marla4

        Wendy,

        How sweet of you! I figure this guy is a serial cheater, and his wife kind of knows it but doesn’t want to give up the lifestyle, or maybe they have kids.

        I read 50 Shades. OMG. Such bad writing! Have you read it?

        • wendy2020

          “Gah!  I’ve read it,” Wendy murmured, the long index finger turning of my inner goddesss doing back flips as she turned each page. 

          Have to admit I did feel the connection between the main characters, however repetitively E.L. James described it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zoe.dyer Zoe Beech

      This is incredible, Marla.  I agree with Wendy – that organised pantry made me smile, there’s a whole character just in that line… ‘how the light caught sorrow sometimes as we moved together’ ‘it would unfurl, it would, full of possibilities, like a notebook… like a heart before it’s ever been broken.’  Your writing hits my heart, every time.

  • http://www.ordinaryservant.com/ Pilar Arsenec

    Joe, you write so beautifully. I’m longing to write like you. :)  Come to New York City, you want tall buildings, theatre and cocktails, hey New York is the place man. Now me, I like nature, space and peace. :)

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      It sounds like we should switch places. :)

  • http://unknownjim.com/ Jim Woods

    I long to finish. 

    Starting isn’t the problem for me. I long to raise my hands in victory knowing the marathon is over— at least for today.

    Blogging is too easy. Too much instant gratification. Put a post up and you immediately have comments, Retweets and likes. 

    A slow grind is needed to create anything of lasting value. But I opt for the quick fix. I long to stick it out. To keep writing despite the fact that 90% of what I write will not last. I long to strive for the 10%.

    I long to finish, despite my fears. If the end result is garbage, then it’s garbage. But the value from the process itself will be lasting. 

    So what’s the take away? It means to quit stalling and talking about the work. I have to sit my butt in the chair and do the work. Less Facebook. Less Twitter. Less of what I want to do at times. 

    So I can do what I really long to do—finish.

    • Marla4

       So much truth in here.  Great writing, Jim.

      • http://unknownjim.com/ Jim Woods

        Thanks Marla, so kind of you to say. Thank you!! 

        • Duncanann4

          I agree with Marla4, this is great, and full of truth! Get that grit, and get that finish!

          • http://unknownjim.com/ Jim Woods

            Thanks so much. That’s the plan! I think it’s hard to want to grind it out when I know a HUGE portion of the writing is going to go bye-bye. 

            Joe, care to chime in? I’m sure you’ve faced this many times over. Thanks! 

    • Jamie257

      How honest and deep.

      • http://unknownjim.com/ Jim Woods

        Thanks so much Jamie. Really appreciate that! 

    • http://twitter.com/1stwordproblems Jeff Ellis

      I know what you mean Jim. I’ve been longing to finish as well, but do we ever? And in the end, do we actually want to? Working towards that goal is familiar. What will our lives be after we’ve achieved our dreams? 

      Really loved this practice. Good job!

      • http://unknownjim.com/ Jim Woods

        I look at it as completing steps (sometimes baby steps) in a journey. And you gotta start somewhere right? I so appreciate the encouragement Jeff; I really do. Thanks! 

    • http://thewritepractice.com/ John Fisher

      This is original and true and motivational, I’m sure, to  a lot of us procrastinators and dreamers who find it hard to FINISH!  Readable, accessible, no doubt as to what you’re saying — good work.

      • http://unknownjim.com/ Jim Woods

        Thanks John! I really appreciate it. I think this is my style and I honestly can see me expanding this and making it a blog post there. Really appreciate the encouragement!!

    • Lisa Roberts

      So true Jim.  I identify with this completely.

    • http://www.facebook.com/dam.busch Adam Smusch

      Wow, I totally relate. This is inspirational.  Thank you.  You should blog it.

    • wendy2020

      Me and my own 50,000 words really want you to finish, so we can follow right along.

      Great piece!

  • http://www.facebook.com/ellie.mack.75 Ellie Mack

    Umm, really?  YOU seriously want to share my fifteen minute sprint on Longing?  *fans self* It is quite steamy actually,  I took the prompt in a erm physical sense.

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Hahaha well, maybe you can share the pg-13 version. Kids read this, after all.

    • Jo Antareau

      So where can we find it?

    • wendy2020

      Ummm, no fair.  You can’t tease us like this.  Can we have just a taste? 

      Maybe this is really your way of showing (not telling) us what longing is all about?  ;)

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