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 · 3 Comments

Write With Repetition

~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

Maybe I didn’t expect enough.

Was it thirty years of varied letdowns that had me figuring I’d always, eventually, be abandoned?

Dad backing down the driveway in a, rattling, empty station wagon, leaving to live in a new home. My first-love-turned-fiancé, cheating on me with the bookstore clerk at the Fresno Mall. Years of subsequent relationships with boys-becoming-men, all who loved me, but just couldn’t commit.

Maybe.

Maybe it was that time in my twenties, in India, when the local boy delivered a handwritten note from my traveling companions, explaining that they were sorry. They had tried to find me. They had decided to move on. Taking a train to a new city. They hoped I’d have a great rest of my trip.

Maybe.

Maybe anyone would have had some trouble, if their water broke at 1am, and the father of their child just wouldn’t wake up. Maybe it’s true that a woman would feel a bit unnerved, when her boyfriend finally did awake to call the midwife, only to discover that she was on another island, 200 miles away, and the first flight back wouldn’t be for another five hours. Maybe all of that would be enough to make a mother hesitate and stall, contractions or not. Maybe nothing in that moment made it feel safe to birth a baby. Maybe that’s why when the midwife finally did arrive, there was trouble pushing.

Maybe I didn’t expect enough. Just assumed that no one would really be there. That everyone made promises, but none were ever kept. Maybe I figured I was always alone, so I surrounded myself with people who were only halfway in.

Maybe.

But no expectations means no disappointment, and I’d had disappointment plenty. And every time I was let down, I landed in that same, mildewed, stinking, shame-filled spot. Just certain that their leaving was confirmation: something must be wrong with me.

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