Creative
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Cardinal
by Leah Dietle * A vermillion stroke across the canvas above- before perching on a branch to rest your weary wings. Your artistry makes others green- envious of your love affair with the wind which carries you. * But my mother looks forward to your arrival- she searches for your existence outside the window. She believes as the wind carries you, you carry reunification- a spiritual messenger from those we lost. * To her- you are the afterglow as her sun sets. A beautiful melancholy- a subtle pungent sweetness infused with the dry sharpness of grief. A pinot grigio for the eyes- addicted. * She feels orphaned now- pacing in…
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Idée Fixe
By Matthew Brothers * So, you see, sigh, swallowed by shame; sickened. You swim in the cleanse, feeding the bursting red. The cycle surely starts again, and soon; you crumple and swoon. * Staring at the spectacular moon, you hope you can hold off. Don’t engage, don’t engage, don’t engage. * Euphoric seconds, that’s all she wrote, all the shame to bare for seconds. Seconds. Seconds. You engage in seconds. * The soulful swell of sorrow and disgust spew up, Siamese cats strut, pounce swift, and never feel your shame. The shame is for you and yet could spring on all, but no reaction should be the same. * At…
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Three-Sentence Stories Winners!
On Tuesday, January 28th, RockScissorsPaper participated in the Student Government Association’s Spring Involvement Fair. We met potential members, submitters, and readers! At our table, we had students participate in a three-sentence story activity. The students selected prompts out of a hat and wrote three sentences that made a story right on the spot! Below are the two best stories from the fair. Thank you to all who participated!! The boy awoke to discover that his dream may not have been a dream after all. Laying on the pillow next to him was the bloody dagger he just witnessed snatch a life in his dream. Deep down he started to realize…
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Twisted Fate
By Veronica Therrien Twisted Fate Life seemingly finds my reactions entertaining. It enjoys sitting there, watching my face grow in anger and my body crawling on my hands and knees, while hurling unexpecting surprises on my path. The only day I’m free from work, a day of possible jubilance, I end up getting lost, in the woods. The forest has always been my escape from the modern world, but apparently, life wants to twist my paradise into a nightmare. The trees softly blow in the gentle wind. I check the weather app on my phone. Seventy-seven degrees, partly sunny. I peek up. The sky thickens in gray shades.…
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Why the Sun is the Only Star in the Sky
By Maisi McIntyre It was quiet and the park was rather empty today, only a few gray clouds in sight, but the weather report did call for thunderstorms later in the evening. So hopefully I would be out of here by then. I had been dreading this day mostly because for the last twelve years of my life I had been strictly avoiding it. And what made matters worse…I would be doing this alone. It was twenty minutes past noon, which meant I had ten minutes to get my crap together, to brace for impact as I delivered what could potentially be a fatal blow. I kept checking…
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Mountains and Molehills
By Dallas Starcher Some people have a way of staying the same for decades at a time, looming mountains to the saplings that grow in the valley every year. Hair teased up into a half-hearted beehive, strawberry-white and pieced together by can after can of noxious hairspray, crime-scene tape barring the bathroom door in rows upon rows of stacked-up warning: don’t go in there, it’ll suffocate you. Jewelry jangles on her hands: a ring for every finger, gold and gleaming, as shiny as a crow’s nest after a season of stealing. Eyeshadow and blush perfectly placed, her soft lipstick outlining a mouth so thin tightrope walkers could use it for…
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1 Lilac Lane
By Sarah Snee 1 Lilac Lane On my first and last day of housekeeping for the Richardsons’ large and looming estate, the flowers began to talk to me. I was, by all opinion, horribly naive. The estate, in its entirety, was spotless. There were whispers all over town as the sleek black Audi rolled through the streets, its reflection in each shop window catching the attention of every passerby, although there didn’t seem to be an eye that wasn’t glued to the back of the car. There was no license plate. I worked at an ice-cream shop on Ginger Street. A scoop of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough plopped onto the floor as I…
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Dead Eyes See Dead Stars
Dead Eyes See Dead Stars by Matthew Brothers Cylinder of sound rotating around, ears hear voices from the ground. Crawling about below, what they do no one can know. When the sounds surround, the decayed will run, scream, and cry. Those reactions given to the realization, and the three are shared across the nation. This moment of sound, when the skulls look around, they all learn what they are- the bones of those perished so far. They can move, their senses active, however, their sight- what they see is not attractive. Their sight blinded, their hope bound -to despair. Blindly trying to dig to the top, reach the starry sky.…
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Flicker
By Matthew Brothers Lights flick on, lights flick off. Lights flick on, lights flick off. In the dark, creatures dwell, can’t you tell? So, don’t turn out the light. Unless you want to be plunged into that chaotic night, don’t ever turn out a light. If you heeded my word, you can read this warning well, you’ll be ok, so long as you remember. Keep the generator running; the electricity can’t run still. In light, you’re safe. In dark, meet your grisly fate. There’s a line between the horizon of safety and demise. It’s a clear switch when light enters and exits. But when lights flicker, what happens? Will…
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SOMEONE ELSE
by Anna G. Potter Dear sorrow, dear last swallow of coffee, dear folded-up longing, dear late-evening fog, I am supposed to write a letter with something important to say to someone else. Someone else. Dear someone else, dear other being, dear alternate life, dear what’s-his-name, dear story-bearer, I am supposed to say something important about you, me, this brief lapse of time. Time. Dear time, dear spiraling-dead leaves, dear autumn, dear spring, dear ever-healing-wound, dear gap, I am supposed to let you pass with measured optimism, but you crash and collapse into free verse. Free verse. Dear wilted metaphor, dear upside-down simile, dear sideways symbol, Dear everything-has-meaning-if-you-look-hard-enough, I am supposed…
