“you won’t fool anybody”

“You won’t fool anybody, dressed like that,” he sneered. “They’re all gonna know you’re trash.”

She considered pausing, the application of her lipstick almost complete, but didn’t. She finished out the bottom lip, pursed her lips together, grabbed a tissue and put it between her lips. A gentle press, the tissue rolled up and thrown away. She was slipping into her shoes, the ones from the thrift store that looked brand new but had cost her “only” three precious dollars.

“They all gonna know the minute you open your mouth and them bitchy little words start falling out.”

She had slipped the shoes on now, they fit her right foot perfectly but the one on the left was slightly too large. It had been a problem her whole life and she always tried to by a half-size bigger and let her right foot swim a little. But beggars can’t be choosers, or so she’d been told. She grabbed the same purse she’d been using

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See.

“she locked the bathroom door”

They were a family that only locked doors when they were out: restaurants, hotels, gas stations. At home, the very idea of closing and locking a door was the antithesis of the home they’d created. The act of closing a door could be acceptable for a phone call or a nap, although even then doors tended to be left open, a quick retreat from one room to another, all that was required. The forethought required to close and lock a door, the meaning of the lock in particular, was not lost on anyone. Who were you keeping out and why, were we not a family? And yet. She locked the bathroom door, and not a quick closing and turning either, this was subtle, surreptitious, the door brought to a close with a slow and deliberate attempt at silence, the handle held at full rotation to keep metallic parts from clanging, the lock turned with bated breath and a prayer that it wouldn’t make an echoing click. Her face burned with the shame of it but she tried to ignore it.

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from Another Name for Madness by Marion Roach (Smith).

“sparse inventory of reasons”

There were always excuses. Always. Excuses are easy to come by and sound as weak as they are. True reasons, now those were harder to come by. In a world with a sparse inventory of reasons, she picked and chose with a delicate hand. She became adept at saying, “I could give you excuses, but they’d be just that. I do have a reason though.” People would stare for a moment, perhaps give a long slow blink, digesting this bit of information that supposedly made sense. Eventually they’d realize it did make sense, and they’d want the reason…or not. Usually they didn’t. Usually people were very much aware that they walked this same tight wire of excuses vs reasons. Most people were simply happy you’d cancelled. Unless they truly needed you. Those people, the needy ones, couldn’t understand the difference, couldn’t find any justification for why you weren’t where you’d said you’d be or worse, why you wouldn’t say you’d be there at all. There is nothing wrong with being needy, of course, we’ve all been there, but the ability to have someone drop everything and be there for you…that’s a big ask. It’s a huge ask. And she’d always thought of herself as a person who would drop everything, who would always be there…until she realized she was not that person at all. She could be, sometimes, but with children of her own and a sparse inventory of reasons that she wasn’t even allowed to voice, she was now relegated to

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from Last Tango in Melrose, Montana by Dan Vichorek.

“the dry season came”

She had a way of loving people instantly, fully, with her whole being. It took nothing really, a look, a smile, a word said with just a hint of irony or with a bit of a lilt. Anything could do it. She’d be sunk, One minute friends, the next minute smitten. In a snap. This ability to fall quickly in love ought to have been a curse perhaps or a blessing, some sort of super hero power: “Go-Go Gadget Love!” But it was simply her; she loved fully and often and with no rules. A great way to live really, until the dry season came. And it always came. Not tied to moons or winds or the migration of the birds; the emotional dry season always came. One minute she was in love and hte next…she still loved, of course she still loved, but the all-in quality, the off-a-cliff quality, the depth and intensity were gone. Suddenly, she could hardly

5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping.
This prompt was taken from Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir.