Shancia Speaks: Short Stories Superb!

We pray for purpose, but we never pray for the courage to sustain it when it lands in a gargantuan pile upon our heads. Responsibilities are everywhere, like a giggling child playing peek- a- boo but to the adult, it is no game. A loop of "to-do's," and "what's next," that intertwines in an infinite cycle that ends in death.  The itinerary lurks on the refrigerator like a toxic man about to break your heart, it never adds to you unwinding, it just adds to the sighing. To get through today, there are zigzags of mountains, gushing rivers, no plains. Support sits away on a cloud, it is just you to withstand the punches of "meeting at 9 a.m.," "class by 10 a.m.," "work, work, work till 5 p.m.," "run home to make supper by 6 p. m.," "do homework and chores before 8 p.m.," "settle the kids by 9 p.m.," "clean up the kitchen by 10 p.m.," "prepare the bags, the food, the ironing, the spot chec...

The only orgasmic oozing that Joanna desires is the one that flows from her mind. You must make her mind come and then somewhere else will follow and most days, Joanna sincerely wonders, "how much longer till I?" She wants his words to position her center stage and make decadent love to her wounds. She wants to contort her aura in ways only known to the aliens and she will not settle for less. Mental stimulation through unearthly conversations is what she truly craves. Sex is everywhere, it has become too much of a transaction, she wants a fixed deposit.  Make her come to you without touching her or without spreading her legs, make her shudder with words that crisscross the crevices of her mind, spelling healing. Most days, Joanna cringes at the "hey," and the "what's up," that waits in her inbox like a dog astray. She rolls her eyes to the heavens because the only hay she knows is the one the horses love and all she knows that's up is the sky. Joa...

She walks around under the shade of a smeared, wide brimmed, straw hat. The whiff of her entrance always greets with a menacing smile. She comes to destroy again. Sheltered under the hat is a vicious Cheshire cat smile, and a twisted brain that leaves one to question, "what happened to her?" A calculated shape shifter, she notes it all and waits.......to prowl when you are unsuspecting, to grudgingly repay you. She forgets nothing. A narcissistic monster forged in the devil's lair, to grow up to outperform the devil himself and now Satan weeps. Demolition is her thing but not that of buildings......... of pulverizing innocent souls, of unnerving carnage, of blatant misemployment under the relishing of sovereignty.  The trail of her destruction is beginning to intensify, and it becomes the tale that her sufferers all whisper. Stories that are pages long of her cruel card games can be read in any room that she enters. The victims are as still as God commands, and they watch...

Some days, I retreat into myself, and I pull down the blinds while the onset of darkness fills the void and hugs me. It's a terrifying hug that reminds me that I am here in this place of uncertainty once again. My thoughts are chained to where I sit because if I speak them out, they may roam in chaos and shatter illusions all around me. Where I sit is a nest of pins and needles, never fit for a broken winged bird. Flight is impossible. Instead, I sit so stiff and let each challenge I don't want to face pierce me until I bleed. Then, I scream, but the echos bounce against deaf walls and reverberate against my ashy skin. I itch. In the void, I look out to see the world passing by and I sit unfazed. The journey I have walked has split my heels and hardened my soul. Concrete feelings that no hammer can pound away, I sit tense. Every experience has come at a price and I have no more money left to pay. And so, I sit in the dark, immersed in pain as its itching boils into a rash, play...