Create a short story, piece of memoir, or epic poem that is 26 sentences long, in which the first sentence begins with “A” and each sentence thereafter begins with the next letter of the alphabet.
Ashes were all that I found, swimming through the corners of our house.
But you were there – bones never make music beneath our feet.
Crawling down the hallways I counted the nails in the floorboards.
Did you hear me, all breath and skin from above?
Exhaling formed a crop-circle of dust just above your head.
From below you called to me, like a siren under water.
Growing up the walls, it shook our foundation.
Heart pounding, I felt for you, eyes shut.
Inside you were sinking.
Jewels of light squeezed in.
Kings and Queens watched us, loose on the mantel.
Loaded with dreams I curled into myself.
Myself, what I’d known, was leaving.
Notches I’d left for you, I remember with shaking hands.
Opening my eyes I watched your words arch over me.
Pressing the walls I felt every syllable.
Quaint as our home, our hearts were quiet with love.
Reaching for you now has never lessened the emptiness.
Silence stays but in this moment I am wrapped in the nothingness of you.
Tracing our past pulls you to the surface, if only for a moment.
Unity, movement upon movement.
Variety is all we have now, a carousel of aging memories.
White is all I can stand, no color to rip me from the view of us.
X-rays of rainstorm lit up our hallway as night fell, and you faded.
Nicole Marie
wordsandotherthings.wordpress.com 