Young Writers Society

I remember that first time you left me. I sat out on the baking concrete, blisters on my palms. Gravel engraved love into my legs. I didn’t move. I dug my nails into the concrete steps, trying to hold on to something, if not you. I stayed until the rain came, until the howls of the wind matched my own, until the last bit of light fled from my heart.

Three fingers like merciful saints and sinners. They slid down my throat, the bile tasted of victory. Bits of gold clung to the tips of my hair. I wiped my mouth. I stood in front of the mirror, my hands writing love in maroon. The love felt like lithium, acid on my skin. It tasted like copper, metallic and bitter.

The sobs caused hurricanes at night. I drank the potion on the table, shrunk down, forgot the key. I cried there on the linoleum until the salt lake consumed me whole. My bones ached as tornadoes racked through me. I lay there in the early hours, exhausted and pathetic. The white rabbit looked at me with liquid eyes, his watch ticked by ever so softly. He cocked his head to the side and then walked away.

The paintings stared at me, my name scribbled in the corners with your name tacked on the end. I scratched it out, scratched your memory out with pins and thumb tacks. I couldn’t bear to see anything that held the essence of you. The ticking of the clock as it rolled idly by made me cringe. The words that rolled from my lips felt like acid, turned into wasted breath, wasted energy.

I should have saved my strength, my breath. I felt your fingers plunge into my chest. You tore passed the skin filled with artfully etched curves, and passed the sinews that ached for balance as they reached out towards the heavens, hoping to find your embrace. You went straight for my heart, your fingers gripped like talons, threatening to bring me to my knees. My heart pulsated in your hands, a rhythmic beating, building to a mighty crescendo that words alone could never describe! Prisoners raged against their cages, bird wings fluttered against aluminum wire. My heart. Stopped. Beating. As I waited for you to make up your mind as to whether you would save me or slay me.

I remember the gold fish on the end table. Their mouths were always open, hail Mary expressions, lives in the hands of puppet masters.

You pulled the strings. I worked each joint, each hinge creaked as I bent further back. Angles and ends, odd and deranged. My arms pinned behind my back and my hair in shambles. My vision darkened as the nothingness consumed me.

I blinked.

My strings were coarse haphazard coils. My limbs were splintered, shattered, obliterated. I stared at the ceiling pleading for light, for love.

But now, my fingers graze keys and guitar strings. I raise my voice as the wind builds in a continuous symphony. My heart weeps, I breathe. My skin is worn smooth from the age of time. I blink and for once, your face is not behind my eyelids. I breathe, and it is not your scent that I breathe in.

Wow! I'm not great with reviewing short stories, but this is great! You have an interesting way with words and the image you make captures the reader! I love how it relates to scenes of Alice in Wonderland, very cool! Your expressions are so unique that it draws in all the readers scenes and makes us feel like we're experiencing it too. *Applause!* Keep it up!

Why, hello there!

The love felt like lithium

What does lithium feel like?

You tore passed

"Past".

I liked this. It was quick and raw and I really think the descriptions sort of rambling all over added a lot to the emotion. It was weird and nonsensical, but somehow, it just worked for me.

I'm going to admit, though, that I didn't like the ellipses (...). I'll raise my hand right now and say that I have an unhealthy obsession with ellipses, and I get that you are trying to make it obvious that the thought continues, but I didn't really care for them here. They just sort of look weird, occasionally trailing off. Every single time they were used, the sentence they ended would work just fine with a period. It wouldn't lose any of its abstraction and trailing off-ness. The thing making it feel trailing is the way the commas just sort of keep coming, letting the sentence ramble a little. It's the words, not the punctuation, doing the trailing here and the ellipses just sort of feel heavy handed as a result.

Something that was weird was the paragraph spacing. I couldn't tell if the extra spaces were supposed to indicate the beginning of a new section of thought or something. But then later on in the story, there is a literal, obvious break with the --- line to indicate a new section. So what about before it? Is there supposed to be a break there? It feels like something is missing, or just oddly spaced without it.

I did like this. It was wonky and short and very disjointed, but I really did like it. It captured an emotion very well and was quite pretty. We get what we need to know about the players of the story and it doesn't go on so long that it feels like it's dragging or getting too wangsty. Me likies.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!

~GryphonFledgling

@ GryphonFledglin, I totally get where you're coming from with the ellipses. I will admit that I'm absolutely awful at using them, along with punctuation in general. Ha ha =] As for the paragraph spacing and then the --- thing, that was just something that the posting screwed up I think. But rest assured, these errors will be fixed. =] I'm glad that most of the flaws you found were with punctuation. I can always take criticism on that! But as for the passed/ past thing. I looked that up, and I'm pretty sure its passed. But I'll take another look =] Thank you so much for the review!

I think you have the right 'passed.' 'Past' is more used as a tense and 'passed' is the action of passing by something.
Hope this helps!

Thanks Butterfinger! I thought that I was right, I looked it up twice. Ha ha =] Thank you!

Well howdy! First off, I like this. It was a little rough around the edges and could have done with a more concrete plot, but, there was a nice use of description, an alright range of emotion and quite a few pretty phrases. It maybe wasn't my thing in that there's not enough solid characterisation or a powerful voice/ tone. It isn't the sort of piece that provokes thought or leaves the reader feeling good or bad or enlightened, but it is an easy read and I quite enjoyed it.

Here's a few specific comments to start us off:

I remember that first time that [Shorter is better in this case. It's more dramatic and flows better so cut out any unecessary words.] you left me. I sat out on the baking concrete, [It might be more effective to say, 'I sat, baking on the concrete' as that would lead nicely in to the blisters mention and it's just a little more exciting/ visual if the person is baking instead of the concrete. Plus, concrete doesn't really bake. It gets hot but it doesn't change form which is what baking suggests. Humans bake. We cook, we burn. But concrete doesn't.] blisters on my palms. Granite and gravel engraved [Granite and gravel are pretty much the same thing. I love that repetition of the gr sound but to be honest, 'Gravel engraved' is probably enough.] love into my legs. I didn’t move. I dug my nails into the concrete steps [Comma here.] trying to hold on to something [And another comma here.] if not you. I stayed until the rain came, until the howls of the wind matched my own. [Extend this sentence please! You don't have any long, descriptive ones yet and here is the perfect opportunity. The length of the sentence would reflect just how long she stayed there.]

Three fingers like merciful saints and sinners. They slid down my throat, the bile tasted of victory. Bits of gold clung to the tips of my hair. [Uh wait, gold? What gold? Be clearer! Abstract is nice but give the reader at least a little sense of what you mean.] I stood in front of the mirror, my hands writing love in maroon. [See this is better as I expect the maroon is blood since it so often is, though it wouldn't hurt to mention that she's cut herself. Might be a nice bit of sensory description in it.] The love felt like lithium, tasted like copper. [Lithium huh? What's it feel like? Describe! Most readers won't actually know.]

The sobs caused hurricanes at night. I drank the potion on the table, shrunk down, forgot the key. I cried there on the linoleum until the salt lake consumed me whole. My bones ached as tornadoes racked through me. I lay there in the early hours, exhausted and pathetic. The white rabbit looked at me with liquid eyes and then walked away. [Mention watch please? The most iconic part of Alice in the Wonderland has to be the White Rabbit's watch and those who are a little slow on references will defineately click after that.]

Nice ending. I've not got many overall comments to make. You could maybe consider making some of the desription more sensory. Add more sounds, more touch, more taste. Those senses that authors seem to forget too often would work perfectly here as this is such a short and condensed piece and it relies quite heavily on drawing the reader in and making them feel the MC's emotions. Making them see through her eyes. It's good though. There's a very nice use of short sentences and I think you've put this together rather nicely. Thanks for the read and feel free to get in touch if you have questions or need me for anything else,

Heather xxx

Hello there.

Nitpicks:

I sat out on the baking concrete, blisters on my palms.

- The 'blisters on my palms' seemed to appear out of nowhere. It's not related to him sitting out on the baking concrete.

I stayed until the rain came, until the howls of the wind matched my own, until the last bit of light fled from my heart.

- I love the drama here.

Three fingers like merciful saints and sinners.

- Huh? This sentence didn't make sense to me.

hail Mary expressions

- The 'h' in 'hail' should be capitalized since you were referring to the 'Hail Mary expressions' as a noun.


Whoah. o.O This is a really deep story. I mean, it wasn't easy for me to get what the story actually was. I was getting it at the beginning, but then I got lost in your wonderful, seemingly endless imageries from the middle to the end! For a moment there, I thought, 'Wow. This story is pure emotion.' It felt like it was just a long poem because of how beautiful you wrote this. And, after I read this, it felt like a song. I don't know why but it did. You are such a brilliant writer. I cannot create anything like this. The only problems were the few little mistakes but you don't need to worry much about them. You just have to edit and be careful next time. (I hope I made sense lol)

Never stop writing!

Okay, seriously. You used some of the best descriptions that I have read in a long time. They were amazing!

Three fingers like merciful saints and sinners. They slid down my throat, the bile tasted of victory. Bits of gold clung to the tips of my hair. I wiped my mouth. I stood in front of the mirror, my hands writing love in maroon. The love felt like lithium, acid on my skin. It tasted like copper, metallic and bitter.

Oooh! I get shivers reading that. Excellent writing there.

The only thing I can suggest is a little bit more on why he left. Maybe just a sentence to make it subtle, but still stick out. PM me if you've got any questions and keep writing!

Cheers,
Luxe