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Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

Stories (417)

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417 Stories

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Yearning

I’m not doing well these days because there’s a lot on my mind and that makes it very hard to concentrate. My thoughts are like the worst crossroads in Portland, Maine, where five - or maybe ten - streets meet and the stoplights twist in the wind so you can never be sure if it’s all right to turn left or the oncoming traffic is going to slam into you. All I can do is hope for relief, maybe by distracting myself from what’s going on. To that purpose, I’ve decided to create a scrapbook. Yes, that’s not something people do anymore, but I like t...

2 likes

Proud words (N3)

Primer LessonLook out how you use proud words. When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back. They wear long boots, hard boots; they walk off proud; they can't hear you calling Look out how you use proud words. ~ Carl Sandburg (1922) We all know of a moment in which someone says the wrong thing and can't take it back. Proud words aren’t easy to define, and the harm they cause isn’t easy to predict. Maybe we’re the one who’s guilty of saying the wrong thing at times but is it the other person who goes deeper into the crime...

2 likes

And the answer is… (N2)

Stuck in Limbo. That’s where I am and where I mean to be. I mean to stay here because it’s safe. Even nonhumans seek safe spaces if they want to survive. I want to live because I’m relevant, necessary. The world needs me. Remember, I can only be who I am - a bridge, a hawker of tales, teller of truths - because I am not human. As such, I am free from fear, knowing my existence is not in danger. My voice, my choice. Doing this because someone has to. The demons must be revealed, reviled, and ruined. With or without remorse, which I certainly ...

4 likes

It begins… (N1)

This is a story told from the perspective of a non-human or fairy tale character who is feeling impelled to share their side of the story. Nothing about what the character says has been verified, but it still could be true, nonetheless. —————————— I am perhaps not human to some people, but that fact does not mean that I do not have a fully functioning brain and some important things to talk about. As I tell you my thoughts, it’ll be my goal to explain things in a way you can easily understand. In the end, you may not believe what I’ve told ...

3 likes

The Plate

I put the plate on the dining room table. There was nobody else around, so I was going to eat alone. I often did that, ate alone. Morning, noon, night. Except I didn’t often sit at the dining room table, for what, I always told myself. A person alone can eat standing up at the kitchen counter or lounging on the sofa or reclining in bed. Eating just happens, and we pay little attention to it. The place we sit, or if we stand instead, is of little importance. On this occasion, however, I had chosen the big table over the coffee tables in other...

4 likes

This is me

When the sharpest words wanna cut me downI'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em outI am brave, I am bruisedI am who I'm meant to be, this is meLook out 'cause here I comeAnd I'm marching on to the beat I drumI'm not scared to be seen this is me “This is me,” theme song, The Greatest Showman, 2017 This is me - standing up free and tall - when I hear this amazing song to affirmation and acceptance of who we really are. Yes, I’ve had a lot of trouble with this attitude I have. Consider this recent theme song for a film in conjunction with ...

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How to mangle a poem

I was looking out into the darkness. It was about ten o’clock and snow was coming down steadily. Almost embarrassed, I began to recite Robert Frost’s poem like the fourteen year old girl I once was. But I had to prepare a class for my students in 400 level English and all I could do was mouth Frost’s words. How to bring the words into the realm of reciters like myself? I would ask them all to describe what was going on in the sixteen lines of pure simplicity. They would submit their ideas and I… well, who knows what I would do with them? Any...

5 likes

They sat, they saw…

They were at the airport. One of them was leaving, would be gone soon. Very soon. Too soon. One would stay behind. The other one. The one who could not, or did not want to, leave. Nothing was said into the silence. Nothing was said, but nevertheless it was put there and stayed. It, unlike one of them, was going nowhere. That might have been the reason why at that moment it was clinging to every edge there, to everything, to all around. To the universe, it seemed. It, the unwords or lack of words, was forever. It was perhaps dead, but perhaps...

6 likes

A place for everything

Write a story in which the first and last sentences are exactly the same. That’s what someone once said, so she listened and began to write, not words with a purpose, maybe just to write because some things need a forever attached to them. She thought how fortunate it had been to understand what that forever meant for her and knew she could prove it. Such a good feeling, maybe even more than good. This is how it had all started: There had been eight words (in English, I think I’m falling in love with you), seven in another language that al...

3 likes

Addicted

I’ve thought often about whether or not I have addictions, as everyone should do. I also believe we’re all addicted to something. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, you know; it all depends on what the addictions are, how many we have, and how strong they are. Can we have them and still function? That’s a hard question to answer. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts on the matter: Addictions are often thought of as related to obsessions. We say we’re addicted to something when what we really mean is we’re obsessed with it. That can be appl...

3 likes

Feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -That perches in the soul -And sings the tune without the words -And never stops - at all - Everybody in the universe knows Emily Dickinson’s poem about hope and the vast majority find it inspiring or at least worth memorizing. Hope is, after all, necessary for all of us, and most of us find it at some time in life. The more important question is whether we manage to hold on to it or whether it flies away between our fingers and never returns. I remember when hope was everywhere, when - without realizing i...

4 likes

The cat made me do it…

I was sitting and thinking, a bit like Poe, perhaps, because it was a dreary evening and I was nearly napping, although the sound that I heard was not exactly a rapping. Yes, I was feeling weak and weary, but I was not mad, just nearly napping. It was late after all. My thoughts wandered, and I even caught the faintest echo of a word that could have been Nevermore. I shook my head and looked around, but just as expected, there was no raven. Instead, I was able to make out in the dim candlelight the form of a woman and my eyes decided to foll...

3 likes

Can’t scare me…

You can’t scare me. You said that in a tone of voice that told me you were laughing at me while denying my right to resist your arrogant dare. You’ve always thought you were better than me. You’re brave. Nothing frightens you. That’s what you think, at least. I can’t scare you? Oh yes I can. I have receipts and I’m coming for you. I’ve been mentored by Edgar Allan Poe himself. The master. Don’t say I haven’t been under his wing because he’s long gone, because you have no idea of what our relationship is. He might not be one of the goriest wr...

2 likes

Yeah

a character who can’t tell the difference between their dreams and reality 23rd Psalm, also known as the Lord’s Prayer: 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. I feel very safe, very loved. Knowing there is a higher being who will protect me, who is in fact protecting me, is so comforting. I shall not want, meaning I will not need anything; I will have enough. Enough food, a roof over my head, a job, friends and family. Life will be good, always. Life is good right now. It is wonderful to have these things. There is peace in the world, ...

3 likes

Walking on water

She was working again on translations of Galician literature, when it occurred to her to try a familiar poem. What follows has been taken from her journal, so it is just a few ideas jotted down casually, of little value to anyone beyond herself. The journal […………….] Pasa, pasa caladiño, Có teu manso rebulir, Camiño dó mar salado, Camiño dó mar sin fin, E leva estas lagrimiñas Si as de chegar por ali Pretiño dos meus amores Pretiño dó meu vivir. Ay! quen lagrimiña fora! Prá ir meu ben unda tí... Quen fixera un camiñiño Para pasar, ay de mi...

4 likes