http://slow.writerscafe.org/basium The original writings of author Jeanmarie Flaherty en-us Copyright 2026 WritersCafe.org 1775981072 WritersCafe.org RSS Generator 15 I think it was being labeled "neurotic" that did it. Sort if like windows being smashed from the inside and my teeth did a tiny little dance against one another, top molars scraping back molars, controlling and distracting themselves while performing a tiny little rhumba inside my mouth. My tongue s.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/1395082/ You're not welcome here,not after midnight sank into your soul and you tasted every inch of skin that hung, swaying, screaming in the breeze from the tree you insolently carved my name in...From the bark that bleeds my heart. You, in your hatred of poverty and how you spit upon the gifts t.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/1344312/ The windows shake, his eulogy screamed the stillness before you...Cry...And it's midnight trapped inside the afternoon as I watch the sky collect her memories, she's not sharing...So I simply dust the years off my bruised knees and theseWalls.Footsteps echo, each step the cloc.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/1312515/ Try, try one more time...As I weave the tears of the moon into the form of your smile and place the ignorance of June delicately around my neck, try...As I evaluate the syllables that drop off of your tongue, as I measure the depth of us by the tone of your voice, and I'll stare, blankly, at.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/1199021/ This is not a poem. It's more of a rant, which I never do but I need someplace to put this. I have a son. A glorious 13 week old bundle of chubby joy. He's smart, strong, sweet, everything a normal baby should be except he was born with HLHS, a condition I became aware of at 28 weeks pregnant. .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/1026148/ I'm not yelling this to him, not again, it's been seven years since I first ran my tongue over the way his lips curl andthat crooked grin I'm not feeding him, I'm not handing him my fears.  We are so backwar.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/1025571/ It's...irrelevant we're two stories, picture books rubbedraw and torn pages, he'srippedup the middle, down the lines of hisface on the left and his right eardanglesover my toes when midnight falls, Iwatch him, inconspicuous, listen to my sleep.I'.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/833582/ He sat there, turning his fingersaround and studying the fingernails thattip tapped against the windows I had kept...closed...for fear of seasons dripping in, he sat therewith no concern for the curls that fellacross my winter worn cheeks, for the .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/489763/                  It's pathetichow this resembles the drifting, half attempted smiles that appeared on the carpetsin the middle of 2005...it's abhorrent, his teeth, his grinding simpli.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/486853/                 He's drenched in all the Tuesdays I walked away from, backwards, towards him, in everyhourI shattered mirrors with the violence of tears...he'ssufferinghis mistak.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/486612/                     It's the last time...        I'll shame myself, this skin will never drink again....my lips will tumble, escapi.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/483300/                    I've...pushed the last month or so off my cheek, I've never seen October leave a markmaybe it's mascara this time, smudged on my face, the leftover stain o.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/480252/                 I'm going to forget her...Blow her off my palm, dandelion seeds to the wind, she'll travel places I've never been, she'llsmileat the sun, and I'llneverburnh.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/475581/ www.youtube.com/watch                   Broken...egg shells and fingernails, there's nothing I can do to make this beautiful, and did I mention...that we're running out of time, .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/443260/                  He suffocated me, my eyes bulged...tears and pleading and my hands were stuckon the front door, I wonderedjust how pretty I looked then.Thumbprints .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/419281/                 He was breathing...I listened, legs crossed and, captured somewhere between bruised knees and twisted ankles,was the intimacy of sleep.I adored him, sometimes, with a nee.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/409448/                  God, I remember her voice, she knew...        how to wrap her fingers so eloquently around my curls, and years spun like gold through her.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/398395/                 I believe it was on Tuesday, when the Florida breezes questioned your whereabouts, my daughter had her hand wrapped tightly around my fingers, index and middle, and we walked, slowl.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/392909/                  Thirty minutes later. Two a.m. and I'm still here, I haven't forgotten......Thirty minutes, tears are racing, creating clock hands that point to the edge of my chin,.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/387891/                  He's smiling again...he broke the world in half and laughter trails down his chin, I wondered...in between the sanity and sickness of me...if he wanted me to cle.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/385008/                  There's nothing behind his voice...hollow and deep, eyes are missing here...he's making love to my masochism, he's kissing his artwork as his calloused hands decor.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/384469/ He's looking pretty...The palms of his hands are stained with thisside of heaventhe abscence of sunsets, he's blue with the moon...and he's looking prettyfrom the corner of my eye where teardrops settled and shamed me, where the ocean meets sunrise, where the tide spits her angry admittanc.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/375425/                  There's nothing. Still, nothing is something if you calculate it properly, it's vast, ten miles wider than the sky, seventy-six feet higher than the peeling redwood I rested my back a.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/369779/  His teeth bruiseever so slightlywhere my skin reaches shoulders and hair dares not speak...His arms, fold, like legs in heaven, and my anklesdissectthis thought with jealousyfor who would notice mein the midst of such perfection?.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/368865/                  He's apparently...not.all.there.I'm losing something delicious, I'm locked in Wonderland and these doors are insecure, there's crumbs from the coffee and drops of cake on .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/368266/                 I know he's been thereSomewhere in between the palm of my hand and the unwritten corners of last week...I know he's seen me, tip-toeing over the shadows that felt misplaced in his .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/362699/  The sun is dying, she's falling, I'm content in his arms this month, like the delicious curling of a kitten stretching out in a July afternoon window, oblivious to the chaos of a busy street and fascinated with the shadows she casts but only enough to bat at them occasionally. He's per.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/336025/                 My name has been forgotten since last September, it's falling, decorating doorways and digging splinters into the soles of my feet....His skin crawls, I want to know where he thinks .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/322371/ I want to thank those of you who commented on this piece when it was, well, not this.....back when it was what it was.Brian asked me the other night to dance for him, he lay across our bed with a silly boyish smile on his face, his eyes flickering with charm and candl.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/313890/ Please No CSS I bit my tongue, allowing for the injury of confessions, warped and broken, they sat warily on my bottom lip.Trembling, I begged for completion, for I knew as long as forever lasted I'd be...empty.He smiled, sideways~in the direction that lovers .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/313888/ Past to present tense, yes, that's the way I mean this piece to be written. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/311736/  I listened to his arms speak, I scared myself with the beauty of lies, he's not all the dishonestyyou knowthat sits across from me on the bed, her legs skinny, bruised and cut, her arms tired from carrying all the weight of my distaste,and my tongue has memorized loving him.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/276617/ Just that, see, alone, at home, sick and without cable or internet, this came out..... http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/270374/  He's not...that discordant surreal Sunday, he's not that memory, he's not these crooked tearsand I swear, I promiseI'm not...broken, on the floor, shards of me reflectinghim.I'd turn around and pick this up, everything that's collected under.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/270370/ *sigh* http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/270367/  It was cold then, that Saturday, when his arms let go...there were ten thousand women I would have rather been in that moment, there were three hundred different voices I wished to possess, there were seventeen things I wanted to say and I would have cut my hairso he never.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/264393/  He stopped me, throwing fire to the ground...I could have stepped through him, feet stuck to the remains of February, time ticking, waiting, patient and cruel.There, in the corners of the edges that exist behind the promise of never, were eyelash~laden wishes, laying in the d.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/258186/ "This is this, and that is that, and he claimed I was a fairytale but I knew I was only Alice." http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/244480/ I'm not prepared for this, for everything we've beenfor every day I've settled my lips above the sun...I'm not prepared to stare at the horizon, I'm sure I folded up the sunset and stuck it in the back pocket of those blue jeans I discarded on a humid night in Florida, I think the end of.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/243419/  He is nicotine and alcoholhe stains my skin with addictions, my lips are inebriated with his kissand I falter with words as they stumble, as breath slides dangerously towards the end.I follow his everything with eyes that burn with the rest I lost knowing him, h.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/234577/ If anyone can make sense of this, excellent for you, but you know....sometimes a woman is nothing but confusing. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/basium/232876/