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Posted in Photo

Quarantine Photo Diary – 2

Posted on by Kelley Farrell
What’s more introvert comforting than curling up in a blanket and hiding for a little while?

I think now, more than ever, I have this desire to be strong in every way. Sometimes that’s physically, emotionally … sometimes it’s in handling everything with a devil may care attitude. But I have to remember that this is still a time of stress, abnormality and vulnerability.

Last night was a new yoga practice that centered on vulnerability. It was apt that it was a practice that focused on being gentle and recognizing and expanding your limits in a time when we’re all being pushed beyond them.

FYI, yoga with Adriene on YouTube is a must for at home practice.

Posted in Photo

Quarantine Photo Diary

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

I received “Happy Quarantine/Distancing” flowers from a friend about a week ago. Now they’re starting to wilt. I feel like this applies to most things I feel right now. I like working remotely but doing it all the time makes the job unecessarily hard and it’s already unecessarly hard in its own right.

I’ve been using what free time I find to work on editing and arranging poetry for a collection I hope to release in the next month. Free time is still scarce though and everything that normally still has to be done is still there, needing to be done. My teenager *to no one’s surprise* does not like chores or doing school work even though she’s not in school.

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves in this very weird time. Let me know how you’re doing and what you’ve been up to?

Posted in flash fiction

Hometown Hero

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

Joe showed up drunk, still clutching a fifth to his chest.

Hattie wrinkled her nose.

“The great hometown hero.”

Sam wore an unholy combination of rotten fish and garbage for cologne. 

“It’s been a long night.” 

“What did you guys do?”

“Oh, just me. I don’t know where he’s been.”

Hattie refused to see this get away.

“Help me get him up. We’re heroes and I’m not going to let our group get embarrassed like ths.”

“I’ve been up all night fighting crime.”

“Ok.” Hattie tossed the rope into his waiting hands. “We’ve got tug o’ war to win.”

Word Count: 99
For Carrot Ranch Micro Fiction challenge

This virus thing has been a little bit crazy. I hope everyone is coping with the upended routines and staying safe and healthy!

Posted in flash fiction

The Shape of Love

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

The shape of love is a funny thing.

Sometimes it’s car doors and raised voices or explosive seconds dragging into minutes. 

It can be square like steps paced around the room or the set of your shoulders backlit by old headlights.

Sometimes it’s a circle, the ember at the end of your cigarette glowing a steady red. 

It can scatter, dandelion seeds escaping on the wind.

Sometimes it’s no shape at all, a blur existing only in our inner eye, a memory we try to understand.

Sometimes it’s long with strides at a gallop as it slides away.

It can fade, short days into the longest nights and remerge, clouds parting for light.

Sometimes it’s grainy, dirt under your nails and a mouth full of mud, or sinister like a pistol at your back. 

It can be oblong, a pill too big to swallow, or slow flowing murky water. 

I’m not sure the shape of this love but it hurts nonetheless.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

For Sunday Photo Fiction

Posted in flash fiction, friday fictioneers

“Destiny”

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

“True love is destiny.”

Juli had no time for old fashioned nonsense. Maybe “destiny” helped her grandmother but that was before the digital age. Everything was different now. 

Juli’s Romeo appeared in the background of a viral video. The moment he smiled, she knew. 

She scoured the internet, hoping to give “destiny” a helping hand. The research was painstaking but every bit was worth it.

He worked in front of his open window nightly, 9 PM sharp. The fountain, he penned, gave him endless inspiration.

Juli sat on its marbled edge, waiting. Any moment now, he would realize his “destiny”.

PHOTO PROMPT © Ceayr

Word Count: 100
For Friday Fictioneers!

Posted in stream of consciousness

Submerged

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

There’s a tide rising within me.
A radiating wave of light reflected from the ocean floor.
I’m submerged in relief,
Grasping for air.

RDP: Water

Very quick tiny poetry – slash – stream of consciousness write. This year I’ve been learning the art of balancing my “writer/author time”. I don’t have much of it. In the past, I spent the majority of my writing time writing here. That meant I didn’t often get to the projects that were more substantial. My goal for this year is to devote more time to things that don’t really go here like short stories and work that can be published. I really, really thank you guys for sticking with me even though I’m not posting often right now.

Posted in flash fiction, friday fictioneers

Rules Meant to Break

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

“Time travel works like a ride, all about momentum. We set the chosen time as your center point, you see that perfectly. Everything towards the edges …”

The tech shrugged but George was unconcerned.

“Remember the rules, no touchy, no changey, don’t slow down.”

With that George was off, whipping through time and space. His childhood home came into view. He could see his father, hands around the neck of the only man George ever loved.

He had done the math. George knew just how much he could afford to slow and, after all, rules were meant to be broken.

PHOTO PROMPT © Dawn Miller

Word Count: 100
For Friday Fictioneers (on a Wednesday!)

Posted in flash fiction

Evanescent History

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

I am 100% sure they do this on purpose.

FOWC: History, RDP: Evanescent

How funny it is that these words seem so different yet so intertwined. 

I’ve been posting less lately but, for once, it’s not bad news. I want to focus this year on publishing. While I’ve been writing, I’ve been more reserved with what I post on the blog. I’ve been revisiting old pieces and working on them more also. If anyone has tips for publishing on amazon let me know! 

Darlene, in all her 108 years, didn’t think she had ever seen anything like it.

There were rockets to the moon, scandals and those who said all of it was fake.

There were plenty of misunderstandings, plenty of things faded from memory only to reappear in the strangest of ways. 

Isn’t history funny?

Now she watched the news slip in and out of existence on continuous feeds. Omnipresent, it seemed, but always fading.

Between videos of freaked out, tear-stained faces and breaking news bulletins Darlene’s memory hummed to life. She remembered this. Before TV, a man and radio, dramatizing a Martian landing. 

A few articles exposing the truth slid away as quickly as they came, but still, hysteria ensued.

Posted in stream of consciousness

Smudged Charcoal Memories (Repost)

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

This was originally posted when I was doing regular timed stream of consciousness writes. This was also back when wordpress provided a daily word prompt. The word that day was candid. Today’s prompts are circular and riddle. I can see circular tones in this and a riddle of kinds.

I have photos in my mind, candid pictures, frozen in time.

Of you, me, the world as it wishes it could be … the way it is and the way it could.

Like rough charcoal sketches, outlining your jaw

Tracing your lips and infecting everything we’ve become.

Conversations are easy, expressions in stars and beauty …

Total comfort we take for granted.

And yet here we are, with candid pictures but nothing solid.

Smudged charcoal memories

Scenes were there, we know, but we’re always just missing the point.

Always just grasping the cusp of the greater things

Only to find ….

We were never meant for the better side

So we cling to something more, hoping, praying, waiting …

We hide beneath silence and sideways glances

While we dangle from the precipice

Fuzzy charcoal portraits and blurry night walking pictures

With broken smiles and tear stained eyes

Are all we left behind but not all that’s left to find?

How long can you hold on? Hold out?

Close your eyes