Imperfect Fit [Six Word Story]

I'd like to refund 
this heart.

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

2am You [Poetry]

We all write about a 2am somebody.
When the rest of the world melts away, scared off
by the sight of the moon, that someone who steps out
from the shadows to save you.
But I don't want a 2am someone who only seems
to appear when the world is dark.
Selfishly, I want a somebody
who wants to be there despite sunrise or set,
who doesn't scare off because of shadows or
who only appears in the light.
We all write about a 2am somebody...
but I just want you.

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

Harrow Hatchling [Poetry]

If I told you there was a bird entrapped within
the bars of a shining, silver cage, would you think
her trapped, or well-off?
Would you leave her there to sing her tunes,
the saddest maudlin melodies, and think them a
stunning sound?
Is she blessed to have so much, though
never permitted to fly beyond
the limitations of her harrowing cage?
Do you see the beauty of the bird
and hear a sweet song, or the image of a girl
crying out she's treated wrong?

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

Monster May I [Seven Word Story]

What did I
fall in love with?

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

Hours Abandoned [Six Word Story]

I've wasted time
thinking of you.

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

While Forgotten [Six Word Story]

I miss you.
That's my mistake.

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

Surviving Without Sun [Prose]

My dear, what life you bring to a world so deterred with death. When shadows lick at the curtains and tease my toes you splash color into this room with breathless vibrance. You've become a survivor after I've killed so many others; you've yet to wilt or dare leave me. I hope you've made roots here, and consider this home a place you can grow. I know I'm a torturous host, denying you water and locking you within these walls, but I know what's best. Sunlight won't nutrify you nearly as much as my company. So survive, little houseplant.

You're the last of your kind here.

[Prompt: Tell a houseplant why it needs to live.] 

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

Here, Here, & Here [Prose]

"I fell in love with you," he whispered, hardly believing that after all this time, he was finally saying the words aloud. He kept his eyes on the cloud spotted sky above, his hands tangled in the dewy grass.

Michael Mayes, 21 and head-over-heels heart-taken. It was impossible to focus his attention elsewhere; his thoughts all starred the blue eyed brunette from Oregon he had only met months ago. He had just returned from a two year tour in Iraq, and she from a school trip to Italy. A crowded airport, hundreds of people, thousands of luggage items, and theirs just happened to be the same one.

And when their hands had touched grabbing for the suitcase they each thought was their own, he knew. Michael had never been certain of anything in his life. But a single touch, a single glance, a single apologetic smile, and he was hooked.

"I know it sounds cliche," he said, rushing to get his words out before she could respond to his confession. "But I knew, right in the middle of the Portland International Airport, that you were the one, Rae. You were the girl." Michael watched a ladybug fly in a twirling, unpredictable pattern before it finally landed on a blade of grass, reminding him of the way his head had spun that day. He rolled onto his back, mentally making patterns in the clouds above as he spoke.

"Our hands touched, and I felt it. Right through me. Not here," he said, resting his palm against his heart, "But here." He pointed to his forehead, where a scar rested above his right eyebrow.

"They told me that after they removed the bullet, there would be some weird side effects," he said, tracing a finger over the scar. "But the only effect it ever had was that day. When I saw the future we would have together. I never told you, it sounds insane, I know, but..." he smiled, remembering the images that passed his mind's eye that day. "I saw how happy we would be, and I knew. Rae, I knew.

"I wasn't supposed to survive that surgery. They said there was a one in five shot I wouldn't end up brain damaged. A vegetable, the doc said. But when I woke up post-op, my nurse smiled, said it'd been a success. She said I must've had a guardian angel watching me, a reason to stay.

"That was supposed to be you, Rae." Michael rolled off his back to stare at the headstone in front of him. The cold marble was smooth under his fingertips as he traced her name, but all he wanted to do was smash it into a million pieces.

It wasn't fair, this shouldn't have happened. He was the one who had gone off to war. He was the one who shouldn't have lived.

A drunk driver and a rain slick road thought otherwise.

But he wasn't bitter. Not anymore.

"You've taught me so much, Rae," he said, his hand never leaving the headstone. He could feel her, her presence, resting her hand upon his shoulder as she always did when he was overcome with emotions he didn't want to express. But she couldn't pull Michael into her arms, couldn't kiss his forehead as she always did, couldn't whisper reassuring words that would bring him back to a better reality.

"So many people are telling me to move on. That I'm young, and that there's so much to life. That forgetting would ease the pain. But I will never," the word almost escaped his lips in anger, and he fought to control the shaking that was rattling his bones. He calmed himself, brushing away the tears that had escaped his eyes with the back of his palm. "I won't forget. I could never forget. Not you, not all you've changed in me.

"Here, here, and here," he pointed to his heart, and mind and ears.

"You'll always be, babe. I promise. The spark you sent through me, that'll live on, in me."

He kissed the top of the marble gravestone, as she would his forehead, and brushed his hand against the letters of her name once more.

"Rest, my Raven. I'll see you in the sky."

© 2012 | Jazelle Handoush

Stealing Stars [Prose]

Mission Log. Day 13: The scars on my hands are a reminder of the past four years. When I decided to set off towards the stars and attempt this so called career as an astronaut, I knew what the job would entail, but not the cost of my work. The craft has changed; there is no longer need for exploration as there once was. Afters years of studying space's history and discoveries, planning and practicing, I'm finally on my own mission. 

It was once said that possibilities are endless, but energy isn't, and neither are the possible solutions to our dwindling reserve. My mission isn't simple, but its certainly worthwhile: steal stars from the sky to add to Earth's supply. Each star is approximately 1.5 x 10^28 kilowatts, comparable to 1.5 million solar panels acquiring energy for three cycles.

Mission Log. Day 35: I believe I've chosen my target star well. According to the scanners, this stars, so named 生存 (shēngcún), will suffice our Earth's civilization for centuries. For no, I'll flat in the space between stars; reaching Shēngcún and acquiring it properly will take some time.

Mission Log. Day 48: I wonder if people realize how brilliantly the dim light they see in the night sky above them dazzles. The smoky haze that clouds our atmosphere makes it difficult to see the true effulgence the stars sparkle with. To think within a year's time, Shēngcún will be mere stardust, filling the tanks of our transports and powering every light the city needs to blind the night. 

Mission Log. Day 64: When I signed up for this mission, I was unaware of the disservice I would be doing to the world. I was told I was adding our survival, but in doing so, I'm destroying one civilization to aid another. Stealing stars from the sky, carrying them out of space and watching them crushed to stars dust, all so we can turn on the light. 

No wonder we're in the dark in the first place. 

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush

The Paint-Stained Leftie [Prose]

He always adored the way she held the brush in her left hand, lazily spinning it between her fingers without a care for the flecks of paint that kissed her skin like aquamarine freckles. She had a six sense, able to find an entire story kept captive within a blank canvas, and she swore it her artistic obligation to bring it into view. And like a mirage, slow forming from a dusty infinity of nothing, it always seems a trick made of the mind, at first. A wisp rises, just a single streak that stretches against the canvas to start the story.

And his little artist might purse her lips before continuing, her cheeks pulling inward to show off her bone structure. He knows that's what must be there, bone, but to think she's built of broken rainbows and unimaginable shades simply makes more sense. Her skin is already stained with so much, both past scars and pigmentations from paint splatter. He imagines the rose work that occasionally clouds her flawless face with a blush must be painted on as well, another wisp that couldn't be contained. As she tucks her brush behind her ear, a wet pecked kiss of tangerine licks at her hair, adding some color to the almost winter white strands. Seeing the contained smile against his lips, she reaches towards this spot, her fingertips caressing the paint like her brush does the canvas.

A tender touch between lovers to make an otherwise unrealized masterpiece.

She laughs, the soundtrack to his life, and dips her fingers in a swatch of neon green. Her fingers run through her hair, leaving waves of color in their wake. Reaching the end of the strands, she curls her fingers, ringlets of greens and tangerines bouncing against her sun-colored bare shoulders.

And then a look takes to her eyes, a blue that changes shade so often, he'd gladly suffocate within them just to define the name. A similar swatch sits near her easel, her fingertips dipping in for a taste.

His hair, and heart, would never be the same.

Not with this paint-stained leftie keeping his life in such a vivid coloring.

A reminder that every mess has its masterpiece.

You shouldn't be so concerned with the clean up.

© 2014 | Jazelle Handoush