Friday Fictioneers: Barbed on a Wire

I don’t smile at anyone but you
but you don’t make me smile

I keep hoping you will leave me
For one of your Saturday night tramps
But you always come home
Each time drunker and angrier

I know it is me that must go
But I am scared
I am also scared to stay

There was a time I wasn’t like this;
so scared all the time

Before you taught me not to smile
At anyone but you

barbed2bwire2bprompt1

This week’s photo: © Madison Woods

Friday Fictioneers is a weekly 100-word writing challenge inspired by a picture prompt. Click here to read other stories.

The month of April is National Poetry Month and so with that in mind, I am going to attempt to make my Wednesday offerings this month, poems. Key word: attempt.

59 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers: Barbed on a Wire”

  18. Dear Dawn,

    Someone’s going to have to make the first move. This put me in mind of Loretta Lynn’s “Don’t come home a-drinkin’ with lovin’ on your mind. Well done. One of your best.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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  21. Excellent twist on the opening couplet for the final couplet. And yes — sadly for some their life is a coil of barbed wire and wherever they turn, no matter what they say, how hard they try, the abuse shall happen. A sobering take on the photo.

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  22. Bravo! Captures the disdain, anger, fear, and frustration of abused women. “Before you taught me not to smile / At anyone but you”…intensely powerful line.

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  23. That was raw and so well done, Dawn. Never having lived this (thankfully), I could totally feel it. Brilliant work.

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  28. Powerful story, Dawn. I’m wondering how many bruises she suffered while being “taught” to only smile at him. I’m afraid if she doesn’t leave and seek shelter it’s going to come to an even more tragic end. Well written. —- Suzanne

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