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She had so many unanswered questions. Why had he left? Was it something she had done? Was there someone else? Or was she seeing this whole situation from too narrow a perspective? Perhaps something had been going on in his own life that was larger than she could imagine, something private and internal and slowly growing until he simply could not stay any longer.

I'm not related to her, I explained in the bookstore. The woman browsing nearby probably didn't care, but I just didn't feel that I could stand beside my mother while she read the back cover of Sarah Palin's biography without somehow distancing myself. My mother looked up from her reading and glanced at me, rolling her eyes like she didn't want to be identified with me, either.

She snapped it up like it was red meat and she was a ravening dog. She'd been starving, hadn't had anything to eat in days, and the leftover bread in the garbage can was maybe just enough to keep her going for another day. Maybe. She hoped it would be, because there was nothing else for her to eat.

She flew into the air without even realizing she was going to do it, just spread her arms and soared into the sky like a bird or a rocket. Well, rockets don't spread their arms, but you know what I mean. Ha. I got off track by thinking about the image of a rocket being so unstreamlined. I don't think that's a word. Huh. Having trouble staying on track today.

brave

It was brave of her to try it, to even make the attempt. Just crossing the living room would have been a triumph. Why do I keep writing about the same things over and over again here? It's like I've become conditioned to write only about Ernie's house again and again and again, when I call up the oneword website, I just return to my life at 6 years old and can't stop writing about it.

It was well-deserved, she thought. This spanking. She deserved it. She'd disobeyed direct instructions, gone where she shouldn't have gone, said what she shouldn't have said. Perhaps if she had kept quiet, if she hadn't given herself away, then it would have been all right. She still would have deserved the hitting, the pain, perhaps, but she would have escaped it nonetheless.

I'm not allowed to go outside. That's what the woman says. She says I have to stay in here. I'm not sure why. I see other kids outside, when I push the curtain aside and look through the window, but the lady always comes running and hits me when she sees me. "You can't let them see you!" she hisses, and then she grabs me roughly by the arm and pulls me away.

lofty

"Ideals," she said, her nose in the air. "Don't you have any? Or do you just live your life in the metaphorical mud, crawling through the garbage of the world and never looking up at the rest of the world above you?" "Above me?" he snarled. "You think you're above me?"

His hair was coarse as a horse's mane, bristling up from his scalp against my hand as I held his head in my hands and kissed him gently, my lips brushing against his once, then again, and then I pulled back and looked into his eyes, my hands moving down to hold his cheek in my palms, and I smiled.

He placed his hand on her thigh, smiling gently when she flinched. "Come on," he said softly. "This is how it starts." She looked away nervously, but then flicked her eyes to his. "Here," he said softly, "put your hand here." And he took her hand in his and placed it on his body.

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writing since 2014 · 57 entries · 55 days shown up

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Kimberly wrote about unanswered
“She had so many unanswered questions. Why had he left? Was it something she had done? Was there someone else? Or was she seeing this whole situation from too narrow a perspective? Perhaps something h…”

the words Kimberly reaches for

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