Write! with Peter Hering

Pictures of my youth came and went; the nausea remained, poaching my stomach with small stabs of remorsefulness. Why was I here? Where was I going? Why had I promised my kids Tobago and instead delivered them shadows of Polish misery? The questions remained; the ability to answer them dissipating with the smell of diesel crawling up my nose.

Excerpt from: ‘Promises from Tobago’
L. Jerome

I walked past the row of suburbia; single-family happiness lining the old expansive alley like rows of steadfast tilia trees. Even Tobago was adorned with the life I loathed.

Excerpt from: ‘Promises from Tobago’
L. Jerome

Tobago didn’t look like I thought it would; it didn’t smell like I thought it would, either. Instead it poached me of substance and burned small, seething holes into the fragile membrane of my life: so much for this being paradise.

Excerpt from: ‘Promises from Tobago’
L. Jerome

Dissecting fear
by wielding spears
of hope.
Strained sounds
from wounds
left shattered and
remote.

I love not making sense. Keep the faith.

“A mess?”
“Yes, everything was a mess; my life, my marriage, my two-bedroom apartment,” I said, forcing my words out and wanting them to brand their anger into his cleanly shaved face.
“And now it’s gotten messier, and more complicated, and it feels like it’s starting to devour me.”

Excerpt from: “Marriage: Just dial 911 and hope for the best!”
Stefanie S. Hope