Truth is, there is no redemption for man-eating lions. There’s talk of soul-return and mane-shaving — but hey, who doesn’t love a lion with a bald pate? But in the end, it’s just about getting incisors shaved down and being paraded on Wall Street like the gummy loser you were for getting caught in the first place. Next time, spill your guts in private.
Slowly, as she closed her eyes, a single tear slid down her cheek and made a small ripple in the pond she leaned over. He was gone, forever. Never to return. And so was she. With a sigh, she fell into the water, and let it take her.
Her return was greeted with applause and celebration. He stood in the background in an awkward postion, trying to remain inconspicous. The father came over and greeted him too with loving arms, and he showed a smile of relief.
Mikaela
There are times when my memory feels as if it were tied to a taut, rubber band and attached to a wooden paddle. Random swings return me to moments I thought lost, memories I believed buried. Bouncing against them with a measured rhythm, I find solace in memories of the future that lie ahead.
John
Your soul is in your voice. God is in your soul. Return to the endless sounds echoing in Our Divine Reality.
How long was I out? It felt like only minutes, but I found out later it had been days. What happened? I couldn’t remember anything before the moment I woke up. I couldn’t even remember my name. And now here I am, just woke up, with what seemed like a hundred people coming over and looking at me, looking at the papers on the table next to me, the big monitor over my bed, everything. And yet, somehow, none of them had noticed that I was awake yet.
Let me go back to before, back to where the farthest place I ventured was by my backdoor. Take me back to that place where life was simple, where instead of appendages we compared dimples.
Hit return to go to the next line.
Why does my keyboard say enter?
Why am I only 20 and it seems like computers change so much that instead of noticing them anymore I just ignore them and curl up into you.
Because that’s the only place I’d like to return.
Melissa
i’m returning to a place i know a place i can draw from memory that i can see and smell and taste it’s the place i learned to walk to ride a bike to be a good daughter and annoying sister i learned to love and be loved there to hold onto what i know and never let anyone tell me i am less than what i am it is there that i belong i am finally returning home.
Thinking about the past, thinking I could return to right my wrongs. There is no return, no way for me to go back in time. I have to move on. Life goes on…
Diana Yakubova
Returning to what you once were, an impossible dream that everyone strives for. Its the better of us that run like hell from it, but that can’t escape.
one day, i’ll go home. one day, i’m going to go back to the place i was raised. the place where i belong. no matter what my passport says, or what language i speak, or the people i’d have to leave behind, i’ll go back. because that’s where i belong, and the rest will fill itself in once i’m back in the place i should be. the place i should have been my whole life. so i know with all my heart that one day, i’ll return home. i can’t accept the idea of anything else.
my mind can wander to horrible places, the day can turn sideways and try to throw me off the earth but no matter what happens in the hours we have to be apart, coming home to you returns things to normal.
Upon his return, the man humbly looked him in the eyes and said, “Son, you are mine and I will love you no matter what you do or say.” In the embrace, forgiveness bloomed. And in that moment, the man knew exactly what he wished to do with the rest of his life.
Sarah Daley
backspace return backspace return space space space return
Please come back. It’s all that we need, all that I need. When you left, all I could see was your retreating back, broad and large, the sun hitting the rays of the sides of your shoulders. I couldn’t see anything. I was blinded for a minute. I want you to return; I want you to come back to me. Tell me that I’ll see you again. Or else all else is not worth waiting for.
Return to me. Tell me that you love me, because I love you.
I won’t return. Ever. Not after what they did to me. It’s too painful to walk around and see the places I used to go, the people I felt safe with, and know it was all a lie. It’s too much for me to handle. I’m too young for this.
Crystal
You can’t return to a place if you never leave. It’s harder to depart a place, a state of mind and heart that’s comfortable. You need stability, reliability, even when all it does is stifle you and prevent you from moving forward. Sometimes, the best thing is to leave, if you can bring yourself to do it.
One day, I returned. That day I smiled. That day I cried. Only when I returned had I known where I had traveled and how I so loved my home. Now I hold that space in my heart, wherever I go.
He stopped. Pressed against the window glass he could see a little face break into a toothless grin. He dragged his hands through his hair, then cupped them over his eyes. The world turned black as he felt the sun’s heat against his back, and he knew nothing would be the same again.
I never had a stable home. I think I must’ve moved about ten times in my 17 years of my short life.
Although I’ve gained a degree of adaptability, I’ve also gotten a little lonely. Where were the friends that they say would stay through thick and thin?
I don’t really remember. I returned to the first city I’ve been, and the people of LA forgot who I was and who I became.
I miss you. I can’t imagine how annoying that may sound to you. Then again, for me, it wouldn’t matter. Honestly, you can be gone for only a moment, and I will miss you instantly. Is that crazy? I don’t know. I just hang on your every single world as I wait for you to return.
He finally returned to her. After all these years, they could be together at last. She embraced him so strongly, and he could feel her heart glowing. For a moment it was nothing but the two of them, and it could be described as nothing but magic.
I stared at the large airplane zooming across the sky. Tears formed in my eyes. He’s…. here. I smiled as he stepped off the large plane. He has returned.
Grace
returning to my grandmother’s house makes me feel so happy and light. When i return to my family, I also feel very joyful and happy. To return is to come back to. I wish I can return to my dreams…
Grace
I stepped back slowly, shaking my head until my back was to the wall.
It came back. I had been right.
It returned.
Tears forming in my eyes, I slunk to the floor, trembling.
What was I supposed to do?
Roxana
He’d left. And I always thought it was permanent. He was one of the only male figures in my life that I thought would remain constant, unlike my father. But then he left. But it wasn’t permanent. Two years later, he returned and everything was okay again. We were best friends again.
your library books. you never know who might read them next… but leave a little of yourself between the pages. thumb them, leave your shopping lists in them, post-its and love letters. people like me take comfort that people like you are out there. return your library books.
Emma Jane
He never thought that he would be able to go back. All those things they had said about him, how painful it had been for him to leave in the first place. . . Things could never be the same between him and the Parquez’s, and there was nothing that he or anyone else could do about it, especially not just walking in the front door again.
Adam W
Return and make it safe, return and let them brave, return and find the same. Return to war, return to death.
to the woods, which are called nature
the natural world
an original place that is supposed to be a state of grace
you find your face but not you
so called grace
named never
other
plastic
space
all over
if ever it was it is not now
He swore he would run away. He’d take nothing but the clothes on his back and his guitar, also on his back. One day we stumbled over a piece of paper in the closet, like himself, and recognised his sister’s handwriting. “Don’t you dare.”
Just the thought of returning to my grandparents old home place brought back such good memories and anticipation of certain good smells. I could remember smelling cedar on my grandfather as he would come from his workshop, or the smell of a freshly baked pound cake from the kitchen where my grandmother was.
Gary
The return went much better than expected. The family greeted me with open arms and several questions. I didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth. It was too painful, too fresh. We ate, sang, danced and generally enjoyed each other’s company for the first time in twenty years. The truth would come later.
i wish i could return back to the old me. When i was little and didn’t care what others thought of me where i could do what ever i want and no one care i wish i could return to a time when things weren’t so hard.
taylor p
Revenir. What is it to return? Is the act of returning as much an internal as an external event or change? Is it the external returning that influences internal states or is it emotional and mental change causes one to return?
I return to my car after a day of shopping to find my car is missing. I return to my home after a day of work to find my home is missing. I good looking for my children to return to their home with me and I find them missing. I return to the scene of the crime to find nothing is missing and everything has returned to normal. Return return return. I want no more returns. I want to move forward.
coming back from being abroad will be interesting. if Shah goes to Davis, i wonder if I’ll regret not having taken a second option. Costa rica looks amazing… but i’m not sure i’d be able to get all the necessary classes in time for the program.
turkey looks fun too but frankly i dont know anything about anthropology or doing it as a career
bryanna
Four and a half years he had been away. Just under in fact, he had counted the weeks. Four and a half years of rough sleeping, getting to know the undersides of bridges, trees, and porticos in an intimate way across the city. From time to time, he’d seen them in the street, and restrained himself from crossing, from getting noticed, from being part of that family again. He didn’t want it.
But he had grown a lot since then, and, feeling braver, feeling stronger, feeling…more himself…he was ready to return.
He was going to knock on the door, and found it ajar, so pushed instead, up to the point he remembered it would start creaking. New carpets. That was a surprise. If there was one thing his father had said, it was that he wouldn’t waste his precious money on carpets. With a strange feeling of familiarity and bravado, he stepped in, without saying anything.
He stood in the doorway, smelling familiar aromas, and pungent smells all at once, though one familiar smell was notable by its absence – the dog. Henry had gone. An odd name for a dog, as if it was trying to live above its own station in life. Henry wasn’t a dog’s name, not in this kind of house, anyway.
He moved further in, leaving the door open behind him. For all his bravado, his instinct desired a quick getaway route if things turned ugly, which they always had done in this house.
The same pictures hung on the wall to his left and right, reminders of how things used to be, the same crack in the glass on that picture, from when the door had been slammed to hard, the chip in this other frame from when Dad had used it as something to beat his Mum with. Was the first thing to hand that he could grab. A vicious temper. He felt his blood starting to go cold, and then hot, at the thought. He was feeling ready for the inevitable fight.
As he padded slowly down the narrow hallway, his senses heightened, each creak of floorboard underfoot, or bang of a gate in one of the outside gardens, raising his expectation of a confrontation as he reached the kitchen, haunt of the old menace. His bravado has fled him at this moment, now he wanted to be gone once more. He felt a shadow loom up behind him, as he caught sight of the empty chairs in the kitchen.
He turned suddenly, with a slight yelp as if anticipating the descending buckle, sheltering himself with his arm. But the old menace wasn’t standing there. The shadow was cast by a stooping woman in the doorway. In her silhouette, he could make out a familiar shape, but changed around the edges, moving less, perhaps. Her posture used to be more furtive, now it looked relaxed, though more than a little broken; a world-weary resignation, all contained in the angle of her shoulders. He’d seen similar drooping shoulders in the bums he’d hung around with under the bridges, that sense of loss and liberation that combined to make them look miserable from a distance, even before you’d seen their face.
Stepping out of her own shadow and into the hallway, she slowly put her shopping bags on the floor, and straightened up, slowly, but not completely. That droop still remained. There was clear recognition on her face, as if she’d been expecting him. No joy, no shock, no concern. Just plain recognition. Four and a half years. Is that all she had to say? Nothing at all?
“Gareth?” she asked.
“Who is Gareth?” he replied. This was all wrong. Did she not even know his name any more?
Someday I’ll return to you. In my head it’s been with fire, passion and some sort of misbegotten vengeance, but I’ve finally come to terms that there’s nothing left there. You hollowed me out for a long time, and I’ve finally filled that empty space with something else. Maybe I never have to return to you.
Truth is, there is no redemption for man-eating lions. There’s talk of soul-return and mane-shaving — but hey, who doesn’t love a lion with a bald pate? But in the end, it’s just about getting incisors shaved down and being paraded on Wall Street like the gummy loser you were for getting caught in the first place. Next time, spill your guts in private.
Slowly, as she closed her eyes, a single tear slid down her cheek and made a small ripple in the pond she leaned over. He was gone, forever. Never to return. And so was she. With a sigh, she fell into the water, and let it take her.
Her return was greeted with applause and celebration. He stood in the background in an awkward postion, trying to remain inconspicous. The father came over and greeted him too with loving arms, and he showed a smile of relief.
There are times when my memory feels as if it were tied to a taut, rubber band and attached to a wooden paddle. Random swings return me to moments I thought lost, memories I believed buried. Bouncing against them with a measured rhythm, I find solace in memories of the future that lie ahead.
Your soul is in your voice. God is in your soul. Return to the endless sounds echoing in Our Divine Reality.
How long was I out? It felt like only minutes, but I found out later it had been days. What happened? I couldn’t remember anything before the moment I woke up. I couldn’t even remember my name. And now here I am, just woke up, with what seemed like a hundred people coming over and looking at me, looking at the papers on the table next to me, the big monitor over my bed, everything. And yet, somehow, none of them had noticed that I was awake yet.
Let me go back to before, back to where the farthest place I ventured was by my backdoor. Take me back to that place where life was simple, where instead of appendages we compared dimples.
Hit return to go to the next line.
Why does my keyboard say enter?
Why am I only 20 and it seems like computers change so much that instead of noticing them anymore I just ignore them and curl up into you.
Because that’s the only place I’d like to return.
i’m returning to a place i know a place i can draw from memory that i can see and smell and taste it’s the place i learned to walk to ride a bike to be a good daughter and annoying sister i learned to love and be loved there to hold onto what i know and never let anyone tell me i am less than what i am it is there that i belong i am finally returning home.
Thinking about the past, thinking I could return to right my wrongs. There is no return, no way for me to go back in time. I have to move on. Life goes on…
Returning to what you once were, an impossible dream that everyone strives for. Its the better of us that run like hell from it, but that can’t escape.
one day, i’ll go home. one day, i’m going to go back to the place i was raised. the place where i belong. no matter what my passport says, or what language i speak, or the people i’d have to leave behind, i’ll go back. because that’s where i belong, and the rest will fill itself in once i’m back in the place i should be. the place i should have been my whole life. so i know with all my heart that one day, i’ll return home. i can’t accept the idea of anything else.
my mind can wander to horrible places, the day can turn sideways and try to throw me off the earth but no matter what happens in the hours we have to be apart, coming home to you returns things to normal.
Upon his return, the man humbly looked him in the eyes and said, “Son, you are mine and I will love you no matter what you do or say.” In the embrace, forgiveness bloomed. And in that moment, the man knew exactly what he wished to do with the rest of his life.
backspace return backspace return space space space return
secret code
returnreturnreturn
Please come back. It’s all that we need, all that I need. When you left, all I could see was your retreating back, broad and large, the sun hitting the rays of the sides of your shoulders. I couldn’t see anything. I was blinded for a minute. I want you to return; I want you to come back to me. Tell me that I’ll see you again. Or else all else is not worth waiting for.
Return to me. Tell me that you love me, because I love you.
I won’t return. Ever. Not after what they did to me. It’s too painful to walk around and see the places I used to go, the people I felt safe with, and know it was all a lie. It’s too much for me to handle. I’m too young for this.
You can’t return to a place if you never leave. It’s harder to depart a place, a state of mind and heart that’s comfortable. You need stability, reliability, even when all it does is stifle you and prevent you from moving forward. Sometimes, the best thing is to leave, if you can bring yourself to do it.
One day, I returned. That day I smiled. That day I cried. Only when I returned had I known where I had traveled and how I so loved my home. Now I hold that space in my heart, wherever I go.
He stopped. Pressed against the window glass he could see a little face break into a toothless grin. He dragged his hands through his hair, then cupped them over his eyes. The world turned black as he felt the sun’s heat against his back, and he knew nothing would be the same again.
I never had a stable home. I think I must’ve moved about ten times in my 17 years of my short life.
Although I’ve gained a degree of adaptability, I’ve also gotten a little lonely. Where were the friends that they say would stay through thick and thin?
I don’t really remember. I returned to the first city I’ve been, and the people of LA forgot who I was and who I became.
I miss you. I can’t imagine how annoying that may sound to you. Then again, for me, it wouldn’t matter. Honestly, you can be gone for only a moment, and I will miss you instantly. Is that crazy? I don’t know. I just hang on your every single world as I wait for you to return.
He finally returned to her. After all these years, they could be together at last. She embraced him so strongly, and he could feel her heart glowing. For a moment it was nothing but the two of them, and it could be described as nothing but magic.
I stared at the large airplane zooming across the sky. Tears formed in my eyes. He’s…. here. I smiled as he stepped off the large plane. He has returned.
returning to my grandmother’s house makes me feel so happy and light. When i return to my family, I also feel very joyful and happy. To return is to come back to. I wish I can return to my dreams…
I stepped back slowly, shaking my head until my back was to the wall.
It came back. I had been right.
It returned.
Tears forming in my eyes, I slunk to the floor, trembling.
What was I supposed to do?
He’d left. And I always thought it was permanent. He was one of the only male figures in my life that I thought would remain constant, unlike my father. But then he left. But it wasn’t permanent. Two years later, he returned and everything was okay again. We were best friends again.
your library books. you never know who might read them next… but leave a little of yourself between the pages. thumb them, leave your shopping lists in them, post-its and love letters. people like me take comfort that people like you are out there. return your library books.
He never thought that he would be able to go back. All those things they had said about him, how painful it had been for him to leave in the first place. . . Things could never be the same between him and the Parquez’s, and there was nothing that he or anyone else could do about it, especially not just walking in the front door again.
Return and make it safe, return and let them brave, return and find the same. Return to war, return to death.
to the woods, which are called nature
the natural world
an original place that is supposed to be a state of grace
you find your face but not you
so called grace
named never
other
plastic
space
all over
if ever it was it is not now
He swore he would run away. He’d take nothing but the clothes on his back and his guitar, also on his back. One day we stumbled over a piece of paper in the closet, like himself, and recognised his sister’s handwriting. “Don’t you dare.”
Just the thought of returning to my grandparents old home place brought back such good memories and anticipation of certain good smells. I could remember smelling cedar on my grandfather as he would come from his workshop, or the smell of a freshly baked pound cake from the kitchen where my grandmother was.
The return went much better than expected. The family greeted me with open arms and several questions. I didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth. It was too painful, too fresh. We ate, sang, danced and generally enjoyed each other’s company for the first time in twenty years. The truth would come later.
i wish i could return back to the old me. When i was little and didn’t care what others thought of me where i could do what ever i want and no one care i wish i could return to a time when things weren’t so hard.
Revenir. What is it to return? Is the act of returning as much an internal as an external event or change? Is it the external returning that influences internal states or is it emotional and mental change causes one to return?
I return to my car after a day of shopping to find my car is missing. I return to my home after a day of work to find my home is missing. I good looking for my children to return to their home with me and I find them missing. I return to the scene of the crime to find nothing is missing and everything has returned to normal. Return return return. I want no more returns. I want to move forward.
coming back from being abroad will be interesting. if Shah goes to Davis, i wonder if I’ll regret not having taken a second option. Costa rica looks amazing… but i’m not sure i’d be able to get all the necessary classes in time for the program.
turkey looks fun too but frankly i dont know anything about anthropology or doing it as a career
Four and a half years he had been away. Just under in fact, he had counted the weeks. Four and a half years of rough sleeping, getting to know the undersides of bridges, trees, and porticos in an intimate way across the city. From time to time, he’d seen them in the street, and restrained himself from crossing, from getting noticed, from being part of that family again. He didn’t want it.
But he had grown a lot since then, and, feeling braver, feeling stronger, feeling…more himself…he was ready to return.
He was going to knock on the door, and found it ajar, so pushed instead, up to the point he remembered it would start creaking. New carpets. That was a surprise. If there was one thing his father had said, it was that he wouldn’t waste his precious money on carpets. With a strange feeling of familiarity and bravado, he stepped in, without saying anything.
He stood in the doorway, smelling familiar aromas, and pungent smells all at once, though one familiar smell was notable by its absence – the dog. Henry had gone. An odd name for a dog, as if it was trying to live above its own station in life. Henry wasn’t a dog’s name, not in this kind of house, anyway.
He moved further in, leaving the door open behind him. For all his bravado, his instinct desired a quick getaway route if things turned ugly, which they always had done in this house.
The same pictures hung on the wall to his left and right, reminders of how things used to be, the same crack in the glass on that picture, from when the door had been slammed to hard, the chip in this other frame from when Dad had used it as something to beat his Mum with. Was the first thing to hand that he could grab. A vicious temper. He felt his blood starting to go cold, and then hot, at the thought. He was feeling ready for the inevitable fight.
As he padded slowly down the narrow hallway, his senses heightened, each creak of floorboard underfoot, or bang of a gate in one of the outside gardens, raising his expectation of a confrontation as he reached the kitchen, haunt of the old menace. His bravado has fled him at this moment, now he wanted to be gone once more. He felt a shadow loom up behind him, as he caught sight of the empty chairs in the kitchen.
He turned suddenly, with a slight yelp as if anticipating the descending buckle, sheltering himself with his arm. But the old menace wasn’t standing there. The shadow was cast by a stooping woman in the doorway. In her silhouette, he could make out a familiar shape, but changed around the edges, moving less, perhaps. Her posture used to be more furtive, now it looked relaxed, though more than a little broken; a world-weary resignation, all contained in the angle of her shoulders. He’d seen similar drooping shoulders in the bums he’d hung around with under the bridges, that sense of loss and liberation that combined to make them look miserable from a distance, even before you’d seen their face.
Stepping out of her own shadow and into the hallway, she slowly put her shopping bags on the floor, and straightened up, slowly, but not completely. That droop still remained. There was clear recognition on her face, as if she’d been expecting him. No joy, no shock, no concern. Just plain recognition. Four and a half years. Is that all she had to say? Nothing at all?
“Gareth?” she asked.
“Who is Gareth?” he replied. This was all wrong. Did she not even know his name any more?
Someday I’ll return to you. In my head it’s been with fire, passion and some sort of misbegotten vengeance, but I’ve finally come to terms that there’s nothing left there. You hollowed me out for a long time, and I’ve finally filled that empty space with something else. Maybe I never have to return to you.