M.K. Lee's Blog: Telling Tales, page 99

Bigger Life

I wield my mop like I’m preparing an ice sheet for a granite curling stone.
Melting the ice with curling broom tipped fire, to carve the stone a path home.
My lime green washroom brush scours tracks in the shower floor dirt;
I pretend I’m digging dinosaurs, Greek pottery, Celtic axes made of chert.
The pink rubber gloves that come up to my elbows provide protection
From isotopes, nuclear fusion reactor cores, mass spectrometer radiation.
In short, I dream a bigger life, instead of one that swallows...

Coming Soon…

While I’m busy working on the next book and all the other stories that are demanding my attention, I thought I’d post a longer finished piece here so you have something new to read. New to here, anyway!

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No friends. No family to speak of. And no end to his latest manuscript in sight. Tyler moves across the city hoping a fresh perspective will turn things around in his world. He doesn’t expect his life to be turned upside down quite like this. There is a ghost in his apartment, and new people...

Arguing With Myself

I get this panicky feeling
And the motion leaves me reeling;
Would it really be so very bad to know just what I want?
I stare up at the ceiling
My emotions are cartwheeling
And my heart is pounding loud enough to make my senses blunt.
Do I want you? Yes. And no.
Can I have you? I don’t know.
But this push and pull and anger is slowly ripping me apart.
Do I forget you? Should I try?
Would you miss me? Wonder why?
There’s no answers, only questions on loop, repeating from the start.

Getting Lucky

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I am not this lucky.

Lewis stares up at his bedroom ceiling in a silence that only comes of it being the middle of the night, and lets his fingers creep across the mattress, until they come into the reassuring contact that is skin on warm skin.

Sebastian doesn’t even stir.

But even though there is bare skin right there beneath his fingertips, Lewis still doesn’t believe it, has to turn his head to the side to make sure there really is a warm body beside him in his bed, that his...

Maybe You Belong

You fell in love once.
Not like the love you found yourself in already,
Built over time, and trust, calm, and steady,
Like sitting in your garden tree house,
A place that is just yours, and yours alone
To watch the world go by from. Home…

read the rest in Shades Of Me

Weak

Tell me that I’m weak.
Go on. Tell me that I’m stupid, and I’ll turn the other cheek
This time. You’ve not been here. Had thoughts like mine.
That’s fine. Sincerely; I hope you never do, at any time
Feel like this. Don’t want anyone to.

Tell me that I’m weak.
When I’m treading tar instead of water and the whole world looks bleak
And without hope. You’ve not been here, not had to cope
With falling down the slope. Clinging to the sides, choosing to let go
Or hold on; which feels better? You...

Scurrying

The scurrying sound starts on a cold Sunday evening, when she’s comfortably slouched on the sofa and on a second glass of wine. Her gaze lifts to the ceiling unworried; this is a top floor flat with the only thing above it an unused attic. They get the occasional bird, and bat, and who knows what other wildlife half the time.

She continues to watch the ceiling as the burrowing sound continues, picturing a Labrador happily digging a hole in the park at the bottom of the road. She knows it’s...

Cats And Dogs

You are a cat person.
You nuzzle, purr, curl yourself into me.
I feel your heat and exhale, a cautious half-breath that I’ve been holding since we first met.
I’m choking on my own stale air and waiting for your claws to add to scars I’ve tried to forget.
Knowing if I allow it, if I give in and trust, you, sloping away in disinterest, is all I’ll see.

You are a cat person.
With each nudge, every pad, the always watchful, endless stare,
You mould me, turning round and round to seek a...

My

I know what you see when you look at me.
My scowl says keep back, don’t get too near.
My stance screams danger, stay away.
My words are cruel spikes that stab and spear.

My walls have deep, strong foundations,
Reinforced and glass fragmented over the years.
How dare you come into my life
And try to crumble them just by being near?

The truth is, you terrify me.
You’re all goodness, and hope, and start over new.
But if I could form the words to tell you my story,
To let you in, to show weakness, what...

Grainne

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She remembers her home before it was ever a house. Cold, dank, little more than a bleak, windowless shack overlooking the coast from uneven ground. She remembers that ground trembling beneath her feet, a charge refuelling her veins as the sky crackled with blistering heat overhead. But more than anything, Grainne remembers the whispering. The mistrustful looks, the way small children were grabbed by the arm and led away from her, the lingering whisper on the air the wishes for her demise....