thematically fickle

From Deb, Write a poem in 10-minutes or less, 250 words or less. Include the following three phrases:
“I tie a ribbon in a foolish way”
“The delicious fragility of this travesty”
“Where we still laugh and wish”
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I can’t stand the delicious fragility of this travesty one second longer.
His face was twisted and red.
I’m sorry, I said. Were [...]

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Deb is at it again. The bold portion is her prompt. The rest is me. 250 words or less. Ten minutes. Go.
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“Wait!” I screamed after her, “Your hat!”
She ignored me, which was to be expected. We hadn’t talked, not really anyway, in more than 10 years. I scooped up her black hat. The mesh [...]

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(From Deb, this week’s prompt—or, guest prompt, rather—is to write a fable with a moral at the end, á la Aesop. Ten minutes or less. 250 words or less.)
The little red-eyed tree frog yawned, blinked his third eyelids twice and stretched his sucker pads wide. He shuddered. He sighed. He looked down from his perch [...]

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(Ten minutes or less, 250 words or less. This week, the inspiration comes from a poem, “The Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” by Wallace Stevens.)
The last thing I saw was rain. Or drops of it, anyway. I mostly remember one sparkling bead shivering on the green tip of the yellow-veined magnolia leaf. Since then, it’s only [...]

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(Ten minutes or less, 250 words or less. This week, the story begins with a picture. It made me think of these three things: Wood Drake, Freedom, Wool. It had to be written in memoir form to include the words.)
It had only been three days since I left James and everything that we were and [...]

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(Ten minutes or less, 250 words or less. This week, the story begins with “Dear Diary,” is set in a limousine and must include the words “missile” and “hearth.”)
Dear Diary,
I’m still trying to take off some of this weight, slogging along on the treadmill every other day. It’s miserable. My knees hurt. My hips ache. It’s boooooring. [...]

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Ten minutes, no more than 250 words. Write in the voice of someone else. This much I got right. The rest…well, failed again. This is what I got.
I exhaled and a cloud of white smoke blew from my mouth into her face. A few curls wound backwards and I inhaled them through my nostrils, tasting [...]

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Ten minutes or less, 250 words or less. Today’s assignment: Write something spooky. (I read this aloud to Le Husband and he said it’s not spooky. I missed the mark on this one but am posting anyway since it’s what came from the exercise.)
Just two hours earlier, she’d been on the side of the busy [...]

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