Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

Write the Last Sentence of an Old Piece, Continue Writing

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

Their leaving was confirmation: something must be wrong with me.

But that’s not what you’re thinking when you step into the pawnshop with your little cache of gold, and a diamond ring. You’re hoping to get fair compensation. Cash for the past, even though you know that your twenty-year old self is never going to get a fair deal from the man in plaid, behind the counter.

You don’t know the worth of what you’ve got. Where would you look to find out? You’ll just take what he offers, knowing he will tip it in his favor. You figure on this, accepting that it’s all a part of the let-go.

You spread your treasures on his counter. A thin gold chain you never wear. One silver ring with a rosy stone, from where, you don’t remember. You slide your big-ticket items to the center. A gold coin your father set into a ring. A design that’s big and bulky, masculine, and too large for your size 4 finger. Not at all your style. You always thought the gift had been your stepmother’s idea, anyway. Hefty with precious metal, it feels like a dare to let it go.

The pawnbroker is poker faced, as he fondles the gold, then moves on to the diamond ring. You don’t know its quality. You just know your first love offered it on one knee, on an ordinary evening, as you sat on the corner of his bed. You were only sixteen. How could he have known there would be more? More world, more ideas…more women.

You walk with a few hundred bucks. Stash the cash in the top shelf of your closet. You tuck your fears of your pending solo, road trip further back behind your Kelty tent. And buried danger-deep in some far chamber of your beating heart, is that notion of an inherent flaw, forever keeping Love leaving. It lives at whisper-depth, the most insidious place. Hiding just enough to haunt, but not daring to own up.

courtesy of Jonathan McIntosh
courtesy of Jonathan McIntosh
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Free Write

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

 

A baby is on my chest. My son. Our son.

Nothing meets expectation.

Like the fact that I am on my back. Or that my feet are still in the air. Or that I’m in a hospital room with bright lights and blue-donned strangers in puffy, white footwear.

Most certainly, I did not expect that nothing, really nothing, would be here. I had seen plenty of movies, read stacks of books. I had expected labor to be hard. I had expected myself to be pushed beyond my limit. And I’d expected that familiar, on-screen moment: joyful tears of euphoria when my child was placed, wet and fresh upon my heart. I did not ever expect to feel the weight of him (so fragile), see his fingers (so long), only to search inside and come up empty. I expected some emotion, any emotion, but I am holding my newborn baby and there is nothing that I sense but numb.

And there are more unmet expectations.

I had expected an ugly baby. Plenty of stories had been shared of slippery, reddened howlers, sliding in to the world, with pointy heads, and flattened faces. But what instinctively nuzzles down at my breast is golden-haired and perfect. His skin is smooth and flawless, nearly sun-kissed, to a tone the shade of ginger root. And his scent, wafting up through the silky hair of his crown, is the distinct aroma of butterscotch popcorn. I had not expected him to be pristine, immaculate.

 

2013-12-05_Baby pic

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Re-write a Piece from a Different Point of View

~the following is part of “Prompted Prose,” a series of posts from the prompts I’m working with during my Spring 2016 online writing course

NOTE: Originally written in first person, the following is a re-write playing with the immediacy of the second person perspective.

NaPali Coast

 

You begin regularly hiking a remote trail that leads eleven miles down a distant coastline. There, you sleep under a canopy of sky. You record the sounds of a few musicians that spend time there. Bamboo flutes lilt above the swoosh of wind over rocks. Songs are sung, as water ripples through ginger-laden stream beds.

One of the musicians on that coast, is Rex. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed, he says he’s on his way to New York City, where he plans to pursue his music more seriously. His songs are about living in nature, and his love for being free and true. You offer to record his music in the coastal haven, one last session before he heads to a concrete jungle.

On the first night camping, you both stay up, star-gazing, naming the shapes of the clouds that pass above in the moonlight. If you see a dragon shape forming out of cotton billows, he sees it too. You feel a familiar connection with Rex, like a big exhaling sigh. It’s surprising, exhilarating, and calming, all at once, though it’s not necessarily romantic. In fact, you’re not sure you even have a physical attraction to him. But the link between you both is strong. You never go to sleep that night.

Somewhere around 2am, the breezes cool. Your bodies are outstretched on a bluff beneath the cumulus, and he offers to pull you closer, moving one arm, carefully, around you. With the contact, an instant reverberation floods every particle of your being. A clear voice from within, rings deeply through your body.

“This is the father of your child.”

You lie still, allowing his arm to warm you, not daring to speak of the words that are flooding your senses. Your mind cannot comprehend what is vibrating through you. You continue watching and naming clouds, sweeping the message to the periphery. You stay up until the sun rises, and as the sky turns pink with morning hues, Rex announces to the ether, “That was the best night of my life.”