Category Archives: prose

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23 June, 2013

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fiction, prose, writing

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Crumbs of Caffeine

Black coffee by Erik Witsoe (www.facebook.com/ErikWitsoePhotography)

Black, cinnamon flavored
JCD Kerwin

I imagine I’m drinking you, as if you’re made of the magic I find in bottomless cups of bitter black at six a.m. when I’m in Zombieland. I remember you as every bold drop plays against my tongue. I remember the way your eyes looked like saucers; dark brown, brown-black, blackish black: eight o’clock irises. I drink you in the mornings when birds want me to smile; I drink you late at night when moonlight begs me to dream.

I will make memories of you crumble like coffee cake.

(June, 2013)

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22 June, 2013

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fiction, prose, writing

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Cracked Teapots from Paris

Broken teacup by oxecotton (deviantART)

Chipped China
JCD Kerwin

She sighs in the darkness, speaks breathless, makes promises she cannot keep. He stares at ceiling fan blades and watches his thoughts disappear within the summer air. She says forever; he knows she will not stay.

Clinking tea cups at a small Paris café: memories of a Parisian rendezvous where he fell, captivated, and became lost in her. They are yesterday’s ghost. She has forgotten; he tries to throw the photographs away.

Her lips are dry. They don’t taste the same. She replaces lace to cold skin and whispers promises of tomorrows that will never come. He listens to the door shut and tries to forget cafés.

(June, 2013)

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18 June, 2013

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fiction, prose, writing

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Neverland Seas

Seashells by Ira K

Into the Dark Sea
JCD Kerwin

Ira was a man I once knew who wore seashells in his hair. He smoked cigars until the vapors clouded around his dread-locked head, and he told once-upon-a-times to us town kids. Ira believed the stars were really fireflies. “They’re the brave ones that done flown too high. Got stuck up there and now they shine all night,” he said.

Ira was a man I knew who made a boat and sailed across the sea. “I’ll see you ‘round now,” he said to me. He was a magic man on a paper ship, off to find a neverland of our dreams. “If you are good, I’ll send for you someday.”

I watch fireflies now and wait. He left seashells on his porch. I kick them into rain puddles.

(June, 2013)

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11 June, 2013

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fiction, prose, writing

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It’s Raining Likely and my Batman Clock is Broken

What? It is. Needs a new battery. I digress.

Phony
JCD Kerwin

He quotes passages from Catcher in the Rye and calls himself Holden at midnights when he’s drunk his head too full of bourbon. He acts tough to hide his self-inflicted wounds, but he’s afraid the world sees right through him. His zealousness convinces him to hit on the older girls, but then he thinks of her and all the ways he hurt her. Sometimes he curses to himself because he doesn’t like remembering the mistakes he made.

He goes to the bar to find reasons for all the things he never did or shouldn’t have done. But the only things he finds are empty beer bottles and girls that will never be her.

He can’t smile when he spies himself in the mirror behind the bar; he can’t face his own reflection without cringing. He wants to gouge out his eyes so he doesn’t have to see, because the face in the mirror just can’t be his.
What he’d give to rewind time.

He’d take it all back and throw himself in the fire he started between them. He’d give up giving into the world and disappear with her. Now he tries to find that place to hide because he doesn’t want to be anywhere now that she’s gone. He can’t remember what it feels like to belong.

He scoffs as he wonders why he cares so much. No one cares this much. He’s not supposed to care. But he does, and it’s why he plays the same songs ten times in a row, hoping the eleventh is when he’ll have an epiphany. It’s why he drinks coffee in the park, wondering if drinking her favorite pick-me-up will call her back.

He tried to get her back, but he’s not a valiant knight; he’s just like the other ego-driven anti-heroes who call themselves “Caulfield” when they’re too full of self-pity to realize they’ve lost.

He might never find the answers he needs, and probably won’t find a way to be with or without her. If she came back, though, he knows they’d be all right. He’d say sorry and she’d forgive him. There’d be no more pretending and no more drinking in bars. There’d be no more Holden at midnights; she’d call him Brian at noon again.

(Dec., 2011)

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9 April, 2013

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determination, fiction, poetry, prose, storyteller, The Novel that Will Get Me Published, writing

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Happy as a Chondestes grammacus

Hey, I did it. I finished The Novel that Will Get Me Published. It was kind of surprising, actually. Finished is around midnight, Monday morning this week. When I realized I was done, I just kind of stared at my computer screen for a while. I think the shock has worn of now…I think. Hey, come on, the thing took me eight years to write–but I did most of it in the past year. And now it’s done.  The first book I wrote in a year; the second in five years. (Those ones suck. I don’t want to talk about those.) But this one is weird. It’s different. It’s…special. Aww. No, seriously, it is.

Now I can’t look at it for a couple days. But then I’ll go back and read it. Then I’ll start editing. I already know who I’d like to send it to for critiquing. Then after that: some more editing! Then it’ll be time to put together publishing packages [which I remember so fondly]. (Oh, look how excited I am! I’m already thinking of everything I get to do next! I’m happy as a lark. A darling lark!… ‘the hell kinda bird is a lark anyway?)

In honor, I suppose this poem is appropriate:

Scriveners
JCD Kerwin

My pen writes
in a different way
each time I hold it,
as if to say,
“They’re not done yet.”

(December, 2011)

And my break’s over. Stay off drugs, kids.