This was a writing challenge….it’s cliche that suspense and mystery novels begin with this one phrase. The challenge was to put our own spin on how such a story would unfold:
It was a dark and stormy night. Which was just as well, because then you couldn’t see the tears rolling down Janelle’s face as she sat in the car contemplating what her next move would be. The mansion was dark and foreboding and she knew once she stepped inside she …

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September knew how to walk. In fact, she’d become quite adept at that sort of thing for the better part of her 16 years. It was only until she passed Billy Walsh in the hallways of Summerville High that her legs were as stable as two spindly, licorice sticks that had been left out on the streets of her native New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
They were a hopeless jumble of nerves that seemed to short circuit whenever the tall, handsome …

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I was one of those shy girls who found companionship in her books. There were no Saturday night dates since I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16 nor endless gabbing on the phone with girlfriends since I was intimidated by most of them.
I was the textbook definition of ‘introvert’. My idea of fun was reading the entire 26 volume Funk and Wagnall’s encyclopedia that my mother bought from a door to door salesman so that …

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mostly, i think of you on rainy days when thunder claps outside my window
and i remember how comforting your arms were as i snuggled against them.
i can recall the times when you came to my rescue for any number of silly reasons.
yet, you always refused to take no for an answer and you never judged me.
you’d always been my soft place to fall whenever i was blue and just needed a sympathetic ear.
your heart was open and giving and i …

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Photo credit cuny.edu
Here are five poems that I’ve loved for years because each has taught me lessons that I needed to learn during a particular time of crisis or happiness in my life……
1. Nikki Giovanni’s “I wrote a good Omelet”
I wrote a good omelet…and ate a hot poem…
after loving you
Buttoned my car…and drove my coat home…in the
rain…
after loving you
I goed on red…and stopped on green….floating
somewhere in between…
being here and being there…
after loving you
I rolled my bed…turned down my hair…slightly
confused …

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One day,  I’d like to make enough money on my travel website so that I can quit my current job,  sell my house and travel the world without looking back.   I tend to feel this way when I think about the years that I’ve wasted when I did what I thought others expected of me rather than following my own heart and ambitions.
I believe that I became less like the person I was meant …

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He cradled her delicate hand into his and leaned in to whisper as he kissed it, “I told you if you stick with me, I’d take you places”, he grinned. Her bright eyes looked up at him as she smiled that effervescent smile that had always melted his heart.  “You haven’t broken a promise yet.” she said wistfully. Their old house, which welcomed the young lovers to a new life of domestic tranquility a half a century ago, bore witness …

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She had already resolved to forgive him, but the universe had conspired against that probability. It was the first time that she’d seen him so vulnerable, so repentant. It was almost enough to make her forget how his hands probably touched her in the way that she knew so well. She remembered his confession and how he promised that it meant nothing to him. She was just a distraction, a piece that meant nothing to him …

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