M.K. Lee's Blog: Telling Tales, page 3

The Painting

The painting has faded dismally from its original colouring.
The bumps and ridges of paint smoothed and slathered on to canvas are still visible,
Though have also softened over time.
In sunlight,
It is impossible to tell the subtle change in shades
Picking out all the details of the leaves in the trees,
Or bricks in the wall of the old house that stands as monument to another era.
There is a hint of water,
Though for its paleness it is difficult to distinguish a lake from a puddle.
Is this scene a sn...

Right

preoccupation
with the right words or right quotes
doesn’t elevate

© M K Lee

Turn Around

You can feel his stare on the back of your neck.

He’s not in the same room as you, he’s not even inside the house. But you know with full certainty that if you turn from the kitchen counter away from the overripe tomatoes you are chopping and towards the full glass doors that form the only barrier between you and him, he will be there, watching. His eyes will flit from your face, down to the sharp knife in your hand as the tomato juice drips from its point, pooling and splashing onto the ...

Collective Breath

The clouds are rolling in, and there is a sense of doom to everything. Every moment there is a sense that we are holding a collective breath, waiting for the next catastrophe to unfold. Don’t you feel it? That sense of foreboding that says something is coming that is far bigger than any of us, that nothing will escape?

There is a storm that
When it hits will inundate
and annihilate.

If you have land, or money, or privilege, the storm is coming for you, too. It will strike every last one of u...

Disgrace

The chicken scratch that is your dialogue and stage direction
Barely stands out on the page of your creation.
The white space is your narcissism and egomania,
Overpowering every false word you spew.
Calling you a disgrace would be
A waste of syllables and use of muscle, so I won’t.
Your arrogance is like an alien forcefield, anyway,
So nothing would pass through.
How dare you,
With the potential that you hold,
Belittle, dismiss, and goad your audience,
And with your gaslighting and defensive tactics
Acc...

Collide

When wealth meets power, two horrible forces collide. Not these two qualities alone, but what putting them together make those with both become. This has always been true. No matter the reason, no matter the century, wealth and power together breeds greed. And greed breeds, aside from an inflated ego and sense of self importance, fear. Fear of losing that power, wealth and the freedoms they would deny any other at any cost. It’s why they suppress, oppose what is different, target all the things...

Out Welcome

What happened to the way we used to be?
Talking about anything, or nothing,
Or everything. But there was always something
For us to say.

Now, it’s just empty space and hesitancy.
Like we’ve both learned other tongues
To converse in. The important things the ones
That get lost in translation along the way.

It feels like you no longer want to know me,
But you can’t find the words to admit
That whatever we had was gone, and this is it,
All that remains of yesterday.

And I know, I shouldn’t have suc...

Long

He should have set off from the house earlier, convinced himself to wait. Now, he’ll have an extra long wait here at the airport, which is going to do nothing for his nerves. The noise, the people, the constant announcements; it’s a wall of sound. Bile keeps rising in his throat for missing his own announcement, for not finding his gate, for his carry on luggage being too big. And that’s not even letting himself think about the actual flight.

“Don’t worry,” says the guy buckling himself in th...

Solve

They always say the best way to solve conflict should not involve violence. Though what if it’s the only way to shut someone up? Darren glared across the table in warning as his sister Annabelle keeps taunting Darren with all her little comments to Joshua.

So far, Joshua seems blissfully ignorant, but how many more hints can he be unaware of before the penny drops? But then Joshua blushes, drops his head into his hands and slumps over the table.

“Annabelle. Would you stop?”

“You don’t t...

The Only Thing That Ever Made Sense

Navy vet Aiden Cadotte might just be firefighter Beto Cepeda’s undoing. Beto thought he had left him in the past, both on the joint base they operated from in Iraq and in the parts of himself Beto has tried to deny. But when Aiden shows up while Beto is on a call with his crew, Beto is transported back to a time when he wanted things from Aiden he could never let himself have. What is stopping him from having those things now?

Beto is. Because despite Aiden’s unwavering patience, theirs i...