Piece by Piece

(Prompt taken from Room to Write by Bonni Goldberg)

PROMPT: Today start writing with no thought about what form the material will take. Or, select material you already have and try it out in another form. Pick from short story, poem, essay, performance monologue, creative nonfiction, children's story.

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"You know, you don't always have a choice of what you're going to write. You're not a cow that can give cream with one udder and milk with another." ~~ Bruce Duffy
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I saw an open window and wondered what it would be like to jump.

Jump down and fall above where I've been. Maybe even touch my toes to my chin. Like a child in a crib, playing alone, again. But people like me aren't lucky enough to win.

I walked along a broken bridge until the ground crumbled under foot.

If I'd stayed behind I never would have found this place of forgotten times and melodic sound. Through long forgotten paths that twisted and wound. My heart and soul to a place to be forever bound.

I stopped swimming in the middle of the coldest spot in a lake.

Let the water gurgle up around me as I sank. Tasted the water on my lips like a misbegotten prank. Watched the billowing air rise above like a fish in a tank. Forgot for a moment that the world had a shore and a bank.

Looked in the mirror for the first time and wasn't sad to see me.

A woman staring back who had lived a life. Happiness was there and the lessons were rife. Too old to be a woman, still too young to be a wife. The truth was glaring back like tears on the blade of a knife.