Community College Cafeteria

Written in response to ABC Wednesday's C prompt:

Photo by 76spread on Flickr

Community College Cafeteria
clears out at about three or four in the afternoon
reminding me somewhat of an airport gate
people wait
for something to arrive
or depart
Vending machines dispense cheap overpriced candy
to students eager for a sugar fix
to make it through the day
And I can't concentrate on anything
two papers due
not a single one started
Whose brilliant idea was it to take summer classes anyway?!
The cold air conditioning torments
but refuses to awaken me from my daze
another force of destruction working against me
I stare out the window
and the trees outside are waving their limbs
inviting me to join them
but I am stuck here
between table, chair, turkey and cheese sandwiches, my computer, old episodes of Smallvile, and a
Literature textbook with tomorrow's assigned reading still unread
And it will all remain as such
until eight o clock p.m.
when I am forced to go to History.

Bleeding Hearts Will Blossom Thanks to You

Written for ABC Wednesday's Letter B Challenge:

Bleeding Hearts by Paul Appleton

Bleeding Hearts Will Blossom Thanks to You

Bleeding hearts will blossom thanks to you

Because of all you gave and all you withheld

You beguiled me from the beginning

And I

In return had burdened you with my belongings

Begging

For you to take me in

Under you your wing

I beckoned for you

For years

Believing that I would bump into you in happenstance

Because I deserved to

Because I deserved you

But in bestowing such an honor upon you

I built you the marble pedestal

That I in turn latch onto

Betraying my instinct to run.

Before I knew you

My boisterously beating heart befriended no one

But you built my bridges

And burned them down respectively

Leaving me effectively

Immobile

Bowing out with global

Understandings

Of our nonexistent love.

And I’ll admit

That in bending to your bidding

It was only the beginning

Of the binding of my being

Which was bursting into bits.

Beyond the bewilderment of your abandonment  

In the grasp of a bothersome body

My blistered digits will one day behold a beam of hope

That in time will breach the barriers of my skin

And bring the breath back to my lung

Blessing me for the timely revelation

That my bleeding heart has blossomed thanks to you.

Ashley

Written for ABC Wednesday

Ashley

Ashley begins to look foreign to me,

Her "A" clearly outgrew all the other letters in her name

And what is a “shley” anyway?

It must be some weird kind of snail

with a yellow shell or something of the sort.

Contorted letters pull their tails in opposite directions

only to free themselves of bond that the English culture placed them in

Even now the sight of the word burns my eyes

and I must cover them with my fingertips

to regain my sense of balance.

Ashley?

I have been summoned

Are you her?

Is she you?

No.

Who is she then?

She is a petite blonde girl

who led the cheerleading squad in high school

and kissed her boyfriend Brad on the lips every single day

she wore short shirts

and was never really nice to anyone anyway

but she thought highly of herself most of time

at least until graduation

She disappeared for a while after then

never to be heard from

until the day she popped up again

at a successful law firm

and no one around her had doubted for a second

that she had made it there thanks to daddy’s money alone.

Oh.

Yes that is she.

The asker walks away satisfied

and I mumble to myself.

But she is also a very tiny piece of me.