Young Writers Society

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

You see her at dinner the night before. Drugged and crazy, her eyes meet with yours for a millisecond. Giant, watery-blue orbs above heavy, heavy, purple bags. Wildly bloodshot. Threatening. Dangerous.

You know that to contend with her would be impossible. Let it slip. Just play with the Spaghetti O’s. Oops! One slipped off your spoon . . . dropped plop on the floor. It seemed so loud only because it’s so quiet right now. Just breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Pick up the pasta. Hmm . . . try to break it in half. It slipped again! Go on in such a manner until she slides away from the table, silently, eerily, and collapses on the sofa with a desperate, obnoxious grunt.

Finally you can leave. Scoop the untouched, half-cooked canned dinner into the snow outside. You like to watch the snow melt; you think it’s a brighter horizon.

Walk into your room. Trip on carpet fray, as always. Pull out elastics, along with hair. Ouch! French braids hurt--that’s one thing a hairdresser mother with nothing better to do with her time is good at. This much, you appreciate, in a kind of helpless sort of way. Now kick off slippers with the gaping holes at both big toes. Rub eyes with fists. Flop in bed. Sleep.

Dawn comes like a scared pigeon, just rushes over you and next thing you know, you’ve got a bird in your face and some white, sticky stuff on your c . . . c-c . . .c-c-c-cold fleece jacket.

I’m getting ready for school now, Mom. Can you hear me? You’re usually up all night when you’re like that. I mean, off and on. You know what I mean. Hold on, you’re still on the couch?

Run to school before she can greet you.

Hey Abigail! I'll just make some quick suggestions, for such a short piece. ^_^

First of all, this was extremely well written! I'd like to congratulate you on that before anything else. I enjoyed what I read. However! There's always room for improvement.

Format, nit-picks, and everything else!

I think your format was a little bit confused. It wasn't a poem, of course, and I suppose it qualifies as a short story, but it seems to fit best as 'flash fiction', which is little more than a quick excerpt. You also have thrown in kind of a guide-for-dummies atmosphere, which is great! But you need to either make that more distinct, or water it down a bit. For example, anti-pop's Your Doppelgänger and You is a how-to guide regarding a person's inner demons. I understand that hers is meant to be funny and yours definitely isn't, but see how she formatted it so that the readers could tell immediately it was supposed to resemble a guidebook? I think you could benefit from something like that.

You know that to contend with her would be impossible. Let it slip. Just play with the Spaghetti O’s. Oops . . . one slipped off your spoon . . . dropped PLOP on the floor. It seemed so loud only because it’s so quiet right now. Just breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Pick up the pasta. Hmm . . . try to break it in half. It slipped again! Go on in such a manner until she slides away from the table, silently, eerily, and collapses on the sofa with a desperate, obnoxious grunt.

Finally you can leave. Scoop the untouched, half-cooked canned dinner into the snow outside. You like to watch the snow melt; you think it’s a brighter horizon.

Walk into your room.

Pull out elastics, along with hair. Ouch! French braids hurt--that’s one thing she’s good at.

This story isn't in poetry because it doesn't have the right format. It's about living with a drugged mother, and, one day, waking up to see her lying on the couch. I want to emphasize the fact that this story is completely fictional.

Is this suppose to be a poem? Like I don't understand it. Can you help me understand it, Abbi.? Like what does it mean? Well, I hope you can tell me.

--Jessie, your besttt franddddd=]