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Abby Lock3 May 2017
I stare at the ice. My cheeks are burning, my hands are trembling. She looks at me staring at it. I look away quickly but look back at the ice when I see her head turn. She knows I need it. I see it melting in the cups she is setting out. Water. I need water.

Beside me is the wing, and a propeller is thrumming so loud it's making my head ache. I can imagine it spinning so fast the separate prongs are a blur, but I cannot see them move. There are windows in front of and behind my seat, but just far enough away to where I cannot easily see out of them. Just the red of the wing at a glance. A glimpse of white, and the red.

She steps towards me... but stops at the row in front of me. Water? She taps another woman's knee. Would you like some water? Oh! No. Was her response. What? I think.  But it's free. She's giving it to you for free. I'm next. But then she turns away. Heads back towards the front. Noooo... she will offer me some?

Beside me the engine keeps thrumming and humming and drumming into my ears, into my head. The whole cabin shutters and squeaks and groans. A bolt is spinning loudly somewhere behind me. Maybe turning looser and looser until it falls off completely. This entire tin can is a *******. I am stuck inside the biggest *** toy ever created. We are vibrating up in the clouds, but who are we bringing pleasure? We are just the ones unlucky enough to get stuck inside.

Finally she turns to me. She is holding a tray full of tiny water bottles and small cups of ice. Water? She asks. Ice? Umm... both? I test her. She barely nods and hands me a plastic cup and a bottle. As I take them from her the coolness from the ice cup caresses my hand. Ice. Slowly I pour half of the tiny bottle into the tiny cup, watching the liquid. I take a sip and savor the taste. Water.

After a few sips, I dip my finger into the cup. Just the very tip. I take the droplet and smear it across my cheek. Then the other cheek. Cool, and refreshing on my flushed and burning face. Then it's gone. She comes back later and asks. More water? More ice? Yes. Both. This time I am not as careful; I pour as much of the bottle into the cup as I can. I'm holding the lid with one hand and the bottle with the other. The small plastic cup is clenched between my thighs. I try to set the bottle down after ******* the lid on but it falls the the floor. I lean across to pick it up and feel the cold. My water is spilling into my crotch, soaking my pants. My ****** feels cold and it's nice. Very nice. It is sad that all the water will be evaporated by the time we land.

After so much water I need to ***. I look around then stand slowly. Two steps forward. She steps aside. I grasp the door handle and step in, closing it after me. My hip touches the door and the other side. My elbows hit the walls. I turn around and ***. No sink to wash my hands. The room is stuffy, worse than the cabin. The smell of my own ***** is so strong I stifle a cough. When I flush, blue liquid seeps down from the top to the hole that opened for my waste. That's normal. But it keeps going. And going. Stop! I think. There's been enough water already wasted. As soon as I start to manually stop it, it shuts off. Good. I grab a sanitized napkin, rub it between my hands then go back to my seat.

The funny thing about this all, is that I am sitting in 3A. That is in the second row. This... this is first class.

Ironic. This is. Flying up so high and free... but still needing water. No matter where you go you need it. But even more ironic, is that when I crane my head back to look out the widow, I catch a glimpse of the ocean beneath us. So much water that we can't drink.
This is an experimental prose piece I wrote about a flight I recently took. (I was flying United btw.) The things that happened in the story are true, if a bit dramatized. Let me know what you think about it! I would love to hear your thoughts on this experimental piece :)
Ady Apr 2017
She's got leaks on her heart.
drips happiness and drops
little blue pills.
She tried to leave time;
ticked some boxes and
tucked her promises
inside the worn pockets
of her winter jackets.
But now, that someone's noticed,
patched her heart closed,
she's all but empty and
filled with nothing but sadness.
Not Lauren Apr 2017
Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out
My mind can’t decide what to say
I wish I knew what this was about

Part of me wants to give up and pout
But my heart tells me to try until the break of day
Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out

Some days in my sleep I’ll let out a shout
The words of this poem decide they won’t stay
I wish I knew what this was about

This assignment fills me with doubt
It’s causing my brain to decay
Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out

Looking for a sign this is the right route
But the horizons are faded gray
I wish I knew what this was about

This poem has begun to sprout
In the end it’s finally okay
Just give me a day, I’ll figure it out
I wish I knew what this was about
Villanelle form - an assignment in AP Lit. Is it too obvious that I wasn't thrilled about writing this the night before the due date?
Paola Apr 2017
So the clouds parted with the storm:
"This isn't us, this isn't our norm"

Seemed like no one wanted company
From someone they once depended for glee

**p. b. l. 04/18/2017
Funny, isn't it?
Juvia Cecilia Apr 2017
"And they lived Happily Ever After."
how clique
is what we think whenever we hear or see a happy ending in a book, movie or even in real life
yet when they don't get their happy ending why do we cry and wish it could be the other way?
how iconic huh?
I cried my eye ***** out when my book didn't end with a happy ending yet the other day I read a book with a happy ending and got annoyed because it was too clique and predictable. Don't you just love life?
Lydia Apr 2017
I hated you
I hated you more than I probably understood how to hate
I hated your green eyes and I hated all of the time I wasted staring at them
I hated how you didn't believe in me
I hated how all I was to you was a story that you didn't have to read
but hate doesn't make sense
You can't tear down a tree just because it makes oxygen
If all I was was static than maybe you learned something
Maybe you learned tbat all of those colours on the TV screen were breathing
Maybe you learned the sounds of a heartbeat other than your own
Maybe you learned that somebody could love beautifully with every cell in their body,
Even if you couldn't
Things didn't have to make sense after you
I fell just as much in love with the things I didn't know as I had with your retinas
This is what stronger looks like
All of the cursive loops that make my teachers happy
I didn't understand how to hate you,
I was lost in all these memories that drifted in and out of my bloodstream
You were in there somewhere, I think
In there with all of the things love couldn't describe
Maybe you were a clot and that's why I left you
I did a lot of leaving after you
A lot of doors closed behind me
I lost a lot of good people
I didn't know that love was going to hurt me
I didn't know that love was going to tell me that I wasn't good enough
I didn't know that love could hide for so long that I thought it was dead and still come back,
Pretending to sew up all the damage in its unexpected wake
You were supposed to be beautiful
Please comment! :)
Angel Apr 2017
You said I reminded you of music.
I know music is one of your favourite things.
The pressure.
You'd wake me with kisses & caress my skin.
But what happens when your fingertips come across my imperfections.
The shame.
You say I'm more than you could ever ask for.
But what happens when I tell you there is more.
The guilt.
You have your addictions, like we are with tarring our lungs. What if you found that I do it because it slowly kills me.
The irony.
404 Mar 2017
-

I'm sorry
I keep apologizing

-
David Flemister Mar 2017
who needs talent
when you've got funds
                                          money
                             moolah
who needs passion when you have cold hard cash?
a sensitive artist seems so brash
who needs skills when you've got dollars?
practice time like bantha fodder
who wants abstract when you've got concrete?
tangible things are worth more, my treat
who needs art when you've got funds?
who needs bullets if you've got a gun?
Seán Mac Falls Mar 2017
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Lear wanders in stormy open, bares warring elements,
The heavens blister, crackle, night is balmy shroud,
Wretched monarch babbles in sprinkles of wind cold,
Arguments lost by ones own pouring perturbations
And raining sky said 'nothing will come from nothing.'

Howl, howls into blackness treed in lightning splits,
His outcast soul, reels, fleshed, cut to smithereens,
Tang of salt burns on the bluffs and the sea rages,
So entire and ceremonious is Lear's fall meted out,
Air spoke, 'nothing from nothings ever yet was born.'

Sky proclaimed to man child King, here is a reckoning,                                    
Each mad choice was self infliction, now wind flays
And sweet Cordelia lies in her innocent **** grave,
Sky, in thralls of thundering asks, 'what say thee now,
King of highborn follies, even purple heaths are rags,

Yet black and above you and night shades, whine,
Unworthy King, done in by compounded effects,
The might of maelstroms in low butterflies wings,
How now, bare trees, knifing reeds, skeletal flashes,
To rains of night are ever your lanyards my lord,'

Sad Lear so near oblivion fell mute, sky went on,
'Howl and cry mad King your reaper calls beyond,
The icy brisk heavens await to brusque you away,
Your slipshod kingdom was mere and fools' dream,
Howl, til howls abrupt abate, for nothing now comes.'
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare in which the titular character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. Based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king.
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