Secretly Satisifed
By Alyscia Cunningham
Inspiration piece

Between these lips, holds secrets
of times
she creeped it.
Bored of repetitivity,
she freed herself of captivity.

Silenced yet free, as she,
satisfies her desires,
her monuments admired, by the other fire.

Grinding the frame within, her soul,
she needs him,
to give her motions,
she dreamed into potions.

Grass is not greener,
yet balances her demeanor.

Intentions to fulfill,
the lacking but good willed.
Second guessing, the questing.
Her lips remains quite,
still allowing his touch to silence the riot, inside her,
His secrecy satisfied her.

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Tracey Riehl
Inspiration piece

Sometimes
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Response

Sometimes, a sea is just a sea, water caged by intertidal shores,

Is nothing more than pools and waves, perhaps estuaries for more

Moments.

Sometimes, a sky is just a sky, outer space’s shy, intimate view,

Is nothing more than celestial spheres limned with tints of blue

Lighting.

Sometimes, sand is just plain sand, a barren terrain starved of rain,

Is nothing more than lowlands spread with small, coarse grains

Exponteniality.

Sometimes, a word is just a word, mere sound carried on the wind,

Is nothing more, no fancy thing or souls clasped, no hearts twinned

In perpetuity.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Tracey Riehl
Response

Leftovers
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Inspiration piece

Abby: “Let’s go back.”

Barbara: “Why?”

Abby: “For leftovers.”

Barbara (She holds up a plastic container): “I have mine.”

Abby: “Not me. I’m going back.”

Barbara: “You hate turkey.”

Abby: “I love Gary.”

Barbara: “You’re misguided.”

Abby: “Just hungry.”

Barbara: “You ate half of the tofu turkey.”

Abby: “Gary ate the other half. Besides….”

Barbara: “He thinks you’re irritating.”

Abby: “Said who?”

Barbara: “Gary. To Steve.”

Abby: “… ‘could hook up with Steve.”

Barbara: “Steve’s mine.”

Abby: “Okay. Not Steve. Then who?”

Barbara: “Forget leftovers.”

Abby: “Janice!”

Barbara: “Janice?”

Abby: “Owe her.”

Barbara: “Sleeping with Gary.”

Abby: “Oh. Her?”

Barbara: “Forget Gary. Forget Steve. Forget Janice. Think of tofu turkey. Want me to buy another?”

Abby: “Janice was hitting on Steve.”

Barbara: “What?”

Abby: “Janice was hitting on Steve.”

Barbara: “Not possible.”

Abby: “Look at these pictures.”

Barbara: “When?”

Abby: “You were in the kitchen. Mashed potatoes, I think.”

Barbara: “Sweet.”

Abby: “Not if he was my boyfriend.”

Barbara: “Potatoes.”

Abby: “He’s still coming by?”

Barbara: “After he washes the dishes….oh oh.”

Abby: “Leftovers. Sloppy seconds. Maybe diseased.”

Barbara: “No!” (She opens plastic container and drops contents on Abby.)

Abby: “Disgusting. I told you I’m vegan.”

Barbara: “You’re irritating. That’s why Gary wants Janice.”

Abby (She eyeballs container and confirms it’s empty): “So does Steve.”

Barbara: “I thought he was her cousin.”

Abby: “So?”

Barbara: “I’m going back in.”

Abby: “That’s stupid and its best friend.”

Barbara: “You’ve called me worse” (She tugs at Abby.)

Abby: “Not happening. Besides, if this stuff freezes in my hair, I’m going to have to use your conditioner for a week.”

Barbara: “How ‘bout soap?”

Abby: “Same difference.”

Barbara: “You go. I have to go back in. Steve’s mine. Janice’s an idiot.”

Abby: “Shall I text her and tell her you have claims, but no ring?”

Barbara: “You’re stupid. That gravy looks good on you.”

Abby: “You’re stupid, too. Luckily, I don’t get mad; I get even” (She pushes Barbara.)

Janice: (She walks over to Abby and Barbara): Hi!”

Barbara and Abby: “You?!”

Barbara: “I thought you were washing dishes.”

Abby: “And making a threesome.”

Janice: “Anyone ever tell you you’re irritating? Who would make that threesome, pray tell?”

Barbara: “Steven….”

Abby: “And Gary!”

Janice: “My cousin and his beastie? No. Not even after eggnog and stuffing.”

Barbara: “That was eggnog?”

Abby: “The stuffing had meat in it. How could you?”

Barbara: “Not Steve and Gary?”

Janice: “Notice this ring on my finger? It’s from Frank. December 15th’s the date.”

Abby: “So, why did you come out into the cold?”

Janice: “To tell you fools Steve and Gary wondered where you went. They, on the other hand, had too much nog to be trusted on slippery steps.”

Barbara and Abby: “Steve and Gary??”

Janice: “Drunk, but cute. Girlfriend, you need to wash that hair.”

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Not Noticed
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Inspiration piece

It’s funny how miseries go unnoticed by authorities. Such was the case when my family moved and I had to enroll in a new junior high.

On what proved to be for me an inauspicious morning, at eight o’clock, when the school’s late bell rang, I dragged my feet to the building’s front doors. They were possessed of cracked glass panes.

I stood in front of those splintering bits and noticed both that they were crowned with a sort of wire mesh and that they were buckled. Moreover, their distorted nature was as nothing compared to the twisted fence, through which I had had to pass to access the school’s property. Those apertures were unwelcoming.

As I entered, I nodded at the mostly red and blue graffiti titivating the doors and pretended that the doors were not whispering to me. In fact, they were telling me where, on the school campus, drug deals were occurring, and they were hinting at where, also on the campus, members of the study body were getting familiar with other student bodies. I wished I could have regarded them as merely old and well-used, somewhat unhinged egresses, but their facility with language spooked me.

No matter, once I went inside, they were behind me. I made a sharp right-hand turn and descended a wooden staircase. I had never stepped on a flight made from that material. The treads noised as I climbed down.

On either side of those planks were yet more carvings and yet more graffiti. Romantic engravings constituted the majority of those cuttings. The school’s mascot, as well as obscene anatomical illustrations, profane symbols, anonymous others’ phone numbers, and a few actually beautiful designs, too, appeared there. In fact, the entire surface of that stairwell was filled with many marks.

Later, I’d come to appreciate those depictions, especially the botanical ones since no blade or leaf was permitted in the school. Like peanut butter, living green things were strictly forbidden. They were not proscribed because of students’ allergies, though, but as a measure meant to prevent additional staff embarrassments; it was said that an ambitious student had successfully presented her science teacher with a marijuana plant and had claimed it was a marigold.

During that first day, though, neither lore nor regulations concerned me. I was more anxious about what might lurch at me as I dragged myself down fifty stairs than I was with the school’s history. Fortunately, other than dust bunnies, I found nothing; I arrived at the basement unscathed.

It was rough to be the new kid and to have to prove myself to fit in. I hadn’t wanted to venture to the dark depths of the school building. In balance, I had wanted to spend that entire year friendless.

As I got lower into the bowels of that building, I questioned whether or not my new “friends’” parents knew about the frightening dare their kids had issued to me. I doubted they would have cared. Most moms and dads paid for lunches, bought fancy school togs, hired tutors to help with homework, but otherwise didn’t get involved in their children’s lives. Such adults wouldn’t notice if a new kid got stabbed or raped.

I shuddered anew. I could be buried alive and no one would care. In my old school, there had been no such rites of passage. There, I had been an active member of the Math Squad and the vice president of our chapter of Mixture, the interscholastic quiz program focusing on science, literature, and fine arts. I was the probable representative of our school for the Mixture state championship, too, until I had to move.

At the bottom of the staircase, I sat and faced the basement’s empty corridor. I was supposed to remain there until the second period bell rang. Something scurried in the dark distance. I climbed a single stair higher. I was afraid of vermin. Long minutes passed. A cockroach, which looked to me to be the size of a potato, ran across the hall. I screamed and then ran up all of the stairs.

I wanted my old band class. I wanted my former Language Arts multiple-choice quizzes. I wanted my old friends. I wanted out.

Indifferent to the slowly moving groups of students gossiping in the foyer, I ran through them and through the school’s whispering doors. No amount of expulsions could force me back into that building.

My parents got angry. They not only refused to validate my feelings, but they insisted on escorting me back to school. Complaining all the while that he was going to be late for his new job, my father drove me to that dreaded building and then ushered me to its front office. In route, he grumbled about how nicely my little sister had settled into her elementary school.

It wasn’t until after I had gotten married, more than fifteen years later, that I ever again confided in my parents. I did my part in maintaining the household, was gracious for their efforts to feed, clothe and otherwise raise me, but never said another mote about peer problems or about self-esteem issues to them.

Nonetheless, they regarded me as their golden child, as the one who they counted on to earn good grades and then an academic scholarship to an important college. A few years later, that the young man destined to be my husband, too, was “accomplished” was, by them, taken for granted.

A few years into my marriage, at a family-hosted Fourth of July picnic, at which I lugged a swelling belly, I had my first outburst. Hubby thought it was hormones. Sis attributed my hot words to the summer heat. Only I appreciated that, at long last, I was trying to break a cycle. With my belly undulating beneath my shirt, I appreciated, additionally, that I had little time in which to do so.

Hearing me, Mom and Dad looked at each other in a funny way and then took salad out of our cooler. Neither parent would ever care about the authentic me, in general, nor about the dark hallway from which I had suffered on my first day at the new junior high, specifically.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Tracey Riehl
Inspiration piece

Yoheved’s Celebration
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Response

She imagined giggling before tripping and falling face first in the sand. It would be a perfect birthday. Ima had promised to take her and two of her friends, for an entire day, to HaNifrad Beach, The Separate Beach, of Bat Yom, in honor of her turning twelve.

Shoshanah’s mother had been skeptical at first, asking why Yoheved’s Ima didn’t, instead, host challah baking, or a visit to the neighborhood senior center, for all of the girls in her class. In contrast, Shlomite’s mother asked why they were even bothering with a separate beach since both Shoshanah and Shlomite were still eleven. Shlomite was a second cousin and a dear friend, with a level of religiosity different from Yoheved’s.

To both of those mothers, Ima had answered that Yoheved’s choice for celebrating her new womanhood was perfect for her and as such was what they were going to do. Shoshanah and Shlomite could join the merriments if they cared to, and if not, other girls would be invited in their place.

In the end, both moms demurred. It was all that Shoshanah could do not to divulge the plan to any of the other members of her and Yoheved’s class. It was both wonderful and unfair, in her esteem, that she, alone, among all of those girls, was going on a trip to Bat Yam.

The week before her actual birthday, Yoheved and her mother sat sipping peppermint tea. Peppermint was Yoheved’s favorite. They sipped as they discussed the schedule for her celebration.

Everyone would pray the morning service at home and then Yoheved and her mother would pick up Shoshanah and Shlomite. Breakfast would be a picnic of eggs, fruit and cereal replete with apple juice and milk. Once the sun got too high for their fair skin, they would leave the beach to tour the Holocaust Museum and then the Sholem Asch Museum.

Begin City Park could be a grand place for a late lunch as long as they remembered to apply sunscreen. Ima promised to pack soda in addition to vegetables and sandwiches for that meal. Thereafter, they’d pray afternoon prayers in the women’s section of one of the local synagogues.

Later, around sunset, they’d return to the women’s beach, dip their toes in the ocean, take pictures of the colorful sky and sea, towel off, and return home. It would be a grand day!

Plans get ruined. The unexpected occurs. Promises get broken.

Shlomite came down with a fever the night before the trip. It was too high of a temperature for her to even ride in a car.

What’s more, Shoshanah had, at last, let her jaw wag. Word of Yoheved’s planned celebration reached the school principal, who, in turn, had called Yoheved and Shoshanah’s parents. Both families were forbidden to allow their daughters on such an outing, Yoheved’s mother as chaperone, notwithstanding.

Yoheved did not go to school the date of the trip. Instead, she stayed home and cried. She cried when she went to bed. In between, during the entire day, she cried, as well. Once, she got so frustrated that she kicked the door of her closet. The only result of that action was that she badly stubbed a toe. Neither she nor Ima said anything about the cancelled plans.

When Shoshanah became twelve, her entire class of girls gathered in her kitchen to bake challah. Shoshanah’s mother beamed. The school’s principal, likewise, beamed.

When it was Shlomite’s birthday, she, her extended family, including her second cousin Yoheved, and twenty or so of her “best friends” visited Shefayim Water Park. Ima bought Yoheved a “modesty” swim dress, that is, a waterproof outfit that covered Yoheved’s arms, knees, and clavicle, but that looked like a dress to the uninitiated. That once, Ima not only allowed, but actually insisted that, Yoheved also wear leggings.

Years passed. The week before Yoheved’s chuppah, Ima blindfolded her, telling her child only that they were going on a mother-daughter adventure. Yoheved obediently kept the scarf over her eyes while tapping, on the dashboard, to Udi Davidi.

When the pair reached the municipal parking lot closest to HaNifrad Beach, The Separate Beach, of Bat Yom, Ima gently removed the blindfold. As tears leaked out of each of her eyes, she reached to hug her daughter, telling her that she hadn’t forgotten the holiday that was supposed to have marked the advent of Yoheved’s womanhood. Ima added that she wanted to make sure to celebrate that passage before Yoheved’s forthcoming wedding.

So, the two of them ate a grand breakfast picnic of eggs, fruit and cereal replete with apple juice and milk. Once the sun got too high for their fair skin, they left the beach and toured both the Holocaust Museum and the Sholem Asch Museum.

Begin City Park was the perfect venue for their late lunch of sodas, vegetables, and sandwiches, especially after the remembered to apply sunscreen. Thereafter, they prayed afternoon prayers in the women’s section of a nearby synagogue.

Later, around sunset, Yoheved and Ima returned to the women’s beach, dipped their toes in the ocean, took pictures of the sky and sea, toweled off, and then returned home. It was a grand celebration.

Just before Shoshanah and Shlomite appeared to take Yoheved to the hall, where the wedding and the festive meal would take place, Ima handed her daughter a small envelope. Inside was the list of plans an eleven year-old had written up a decade earlier. Next to each item was a check mark and an imprint of one of Ima’s kisses.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.