Courage

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This is my thinking place, I share it happily

I wish we could walk it once together

I have questions of life

Your answers provide my awakening

Your creative gift today, well, I’ll forever be thanking

Writing is a personal journey

Sharing it with others takes faith in God, for me

Remind me why we do what we do

Why writers rip open their minds

Toss contents on the table

Wear our hearts out on complete strangers

After today’s post I think I should share a photo I find comfort in remembering. The poem above I wrote after my friend, Michael, posted a beautiful photo. He wrote of encouraging thoughts along with it. His words helped then and they continue to help me today. Check out his photo and his blog, Harcourt 51, if you haven’t done so already. He is worth sharing with you guys. He creates wonderful opportunities to think and stretch your mind. His photos are spectacular, as well. For your words, Michael, once again I thank you.

Fear: My Old Friend

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 On occasion I have this negative voice that enters my mind. He reminds me that I have the ability to dwell in fear. I just needed to let him know that I’m not afraid, even if I feel completely exposed. 

Fear: I saw you today, Courage. What you did, well, it was cute.

Courage: I got up there on that step. I wrote it. I read it!

Fear: It was amateur, at best.

Courage: I felt alive. Wasn’t I brilliant!?

Fear: I don’t know about that, Courage. I think I still found the perfect dark spot within you.

Courage: No you didn’t, Fear. I wasn’t weak. You witnessed strength.

Fear: Nope, I know what I saw. You did it, but then you ran and hid. I saw your eyes.

Courage: Shut up!

Fear: I’m just being honest. I thought you should know, it’ll be okay. Stick to what you know, friend.

Courage: I didn’t ask for your help. I thought you’d left, anyway.

Fear: Why would I leave? You’re just getting comfortable.

Courage: I think you’re scared of me, actually.

Fear: I am not, please, yeah right.

Courage: I think so. Just look at this, it seems, I can almost see right through you.

Fear: What? Where?

Courage: See – like this…my hand slides right through your image. I barely feel you.

Fear: Wait. Oh, that?

Courage: So you do see it happening? Good.

Fear: Psst! Your mistake, Courage. I’m still here. I allow myself different packaging.

Courage: How? Please explain…

Fear:  See, I would, but I needn’t bother. You still find me everywhere. Silly girl…

I chose to write it out, in spite of him, in an effort to keep the upper hand…

Daniel 10: 19-21. (Joshua 1: 6-7, 2 Corinthians 12:9)

I’m Up For It

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We could watch paint dry together
Listen to my secretive prose
Quiet words flying nearby
I know

I’m up for it, if you are.

Stand in line to watch water evaporate
Tap our feet to your street music
Keep alive our creative beat
Finally same concrete
I hear

I’m up for it, if you are.

Sit here guessing similar fears
Search eyes; touch skin
For truth and acceptance
Kiss trembling away
I feel

I’m up for it, if you are.

All three creative and real
Capable of floating up
To be caught for witness
Changing many lives
I believe

I’m up for it, if you are.

Lying there with you
Let it be: I ask
Maybe today you can?
Try to be my kind of Saturday

A Conversation With A Girl – The End

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Kyle flicked the bill of his baseball cap. “I have a feeling, correct me if I’m wrong, but there isn’t much about you that gets old,” he said, as he pointed a finger in her direction.

Andy’s mouth gapped open. Kyle’s eyes darted around her lips. Her eyes flared with surprise. His fingers flinched with a need to touch her bottom lip.

“What…?” She was speechless for about a second. Then the sound that came out next made everything right with the world.

Kyle’s eyes never left her face, that laugh, the best part was that she was giving it away for free.

********** Continue reading →

A Conversation With A Girl – Part Two

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Kyle sized up his surroundings and walked towards the bar. There were two older gentlemen, deep in conversation, and sitting at the end. One was drinking black coffee. Kyle watched the steam float up as the bartender placed a cup down in front of a man. A man she obviously new well. It was the reassuring way she touched his swollen and aging hand. The man’s confidant was holding a short class with mostly ice inside. Kyle had seen his father’s associates holding glasses like that one. Typically, while in deep discussion, as well. The bottom of the glass had once held a layer of whiskey, he’d bet. The man looked to have had a few of them. Continue reading →

A Conversation With A Girl

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“Well, it could have gone differently, I believe, but seeing how well it’s turned out, I’d say she dodged a bullet.”

Idiot. What did he know anyway, ‘how well it’s turned out’, give me a break!

His tires barked as he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. Requesting the song, he shouted out to his car and flipped the volume way up. He wanted that song now! The music quickly started and everything his father had said began to drown out. Finally, now it didn’t matter where his car took him. His pulse began to lessen.

Turning left or right wasn’t his concern, frankly he couldn’t give a damn, as long as he put distance between them. Continue reading →

Who Said The Word Snow? I’m Coming To Find You…

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I’m quite upset this morning, don’t you see?

We were supposed to wake up screaming something like, “IT’S SNOWING!”

They let us know 19 hours too early, that school would be canceled today without thinking.

Whoopie! I’ll spend my day writing and baking. It’s just the weather to write of love-making.

I’ll keep the kettle hot for coffee, cocoa and tea, all the while children watch something on T.V.

No, I’m not up North and I haven’t moved back to the middle of this country.

You see, we’re still down here in cowboy country, but the snow apparently isn’t coming.

Texas had a winter warning, snow and ice it seemed, and me without my equipment for sledding.

I guess we’ll read and eat those muffins over there cooling.

Yes, eat them all day long, it seems.

We won’t get out of our jammies, I don’t care what you think.

Who closes school for a snow day 19 hours too early?

That would be Texas, we don’t have the road clearing means…

But please, wait until you see something happening.

Today, life was canceled for snow and ice.

I have two confused children who await explaining!

My GRL by John W. Howell! Blog Tour!

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Big Launch in 2014 My GRL Fiction Thriller

By John W. Howell

Now available on Amazon a new Fiction Thriller published by Martin Sisters Publishing

my grl5star-shiny-web

“My GRL by John W. Howell is fast-paced thriller that shows how your life can be turned upside down in the blink of an eye. . . It is a well-written story that kept me glued, page after page.” Readers’ Favorite Five Stars – Reviewed by Faridah Nassozi. See the entire review HERE

Click cover to visit Amazon

Blurb:

John J. Cannon successful San Francisco lawyer takes a well-deserved leave of absence from the firm and buys a boat he names My GRL. He is unaware that his newly purchased boat had already been targeted by a terrorist group. John’s first inkling of a problem is when he wakes up in the hospital where he learns he was found unconscious next to the dead body of the attractive young woman who sold him the boat in the first place. John now stands between the terrorists and the success of their mission.

Author Bio:

Photo by Tim Burdick

Photo by Tim Burdick

John W. Howell’s main interests are reading and writing. He turned to writing as a full time occupation after an extensive career in business. John writes thriller fiction novels and short stories. He also has a three times weekly blog at Fiction Favorites .

John lives on Mustang Island in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of south Texas with his wife and their spoiled rescue pets.

Author Contact:

E-mail: johnwhowell.wave@gmail.com

Twitter: @HowellWave

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.howell.98229241

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/johnwhowell

I Hope This Never Ends

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Galveston, TX

Galveston, TX

I wondered the quiet beach and imagined you today

Seemingly embodied in each crystal clear blue wave

I searched for your words as you twisted us closer

Roughly escorting me deeper into that vast ocean

Pull me under and into your strong current, I plea

Might as well, around you I can’t seem to breathe

Feel us spin effortlessly in the morning water, too

Again I stumble, beating my head against the sand

Maybe I’ll learn and these feelings can finally end

Again, what my mind does for you…

College Life: The Jokes Just Keep On Comin’

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There was this place not far from campus that served the best drunk pizza ever…ever…ever…

Oh! You caught that?

No, the pizza wasn’t drunk, the people consuming it on the other hand were drunk and most of the time. It was college. What did you expect? Our college town pizza place was called Pizza Shuttle. Spring Break Dormitory had a resident named Joke Guy. This older non-traditional gentleman made up the best joke one day about Pizza Shuttle. It went like this:  Continue reading →

College Life: I Could Live in a Cardboard Box For You

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“Then, this one time, in College…”

Once upon a time I wanted to fall in love with a sociology major. I blame Bearded Jake for this romantic idea. He probably ended up living in a cardboard box. He talked so fondly about one the year we lived in Spring Break Dormitory. He may be the richest man in world now, but we’ll never know.

We called him Bearded Jake. His name was way better than Bearded Jake, but I can’t use it.

You know sometimes nicknames just click without any type of fuss. I always loved that about his name. Jake’s nickname was original, if nothing else. The reason we had to nickname him Bearded Jake was because, as you know, in college for every Jennifer you meet there are at least four boys named Jake.

Our Jake was much cooler than the other Jakes, so we up’d his coolness with a fantastic name.  Continue reading →

College Life: She Follows Accents

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College life became exciting fast after a few days of settling into a routine. One day, I walked into my dormitory just in time to see a man carrying his mountain bike across the lawn. He wore his backpack, or maybe it was a business bag, across his body. He had a long plastic tube strapped to his back and runner’s legs. I liked that a whole lot.

What kind of cowboy is he? I remember thinking, as I watched him more closely. No not really, but time did stop for a brief moment. I walked away with the realization I’d be back for him one day. Poor guy. He didn’t even see me coming.  Continue reading →

College Life: Audrey, Meet The British

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The Day that changed my life: Thank God for the British!

It wasn’t the women themselves that my father seemed taken aback by, it was the Doc Martens and long flowy skirts. I have to say, for me, it was the hats that they were wearing. They blew me away. I had fallen in love. It was like me; the aspiring vagabond was looking into her future just watching the two of them walk by.

When I was dropped off for my first semester away at college I remember thinking that I’d be lonely, and definitely afraid. I’m not sure why I thought I’d be lonely, as history had already proven that making friends was easy for me, once I agreed to open my mouth, of course. It was the fear of city living that I worried about, mostly. I hadn’t much experience with the codes of city life. One thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t like feeling afraid.  Continue reading →

College Life: Day One – Hippies Do Not Eat People, Audrey

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Our family vehicle was full of my life’s possessions and it had been driven for over five hours by my father. We were cruising down the interstate talking, and car shopping. All the important father daughter conversations being prompted by anything found beside the road. I was trying pretty hard to make it a memorable trip. This was our last weekend together living as a family. It was fun, well until we ran out of gas.

“What happened? This is a brand new truck! It must be a computer chip!” he’d said

I remember him turning and looking at me confused, possibly bewildered, if a cowboy can feel that way. He and I looked at each other at about the same time and realized what we’d done. We’d forgotten to fuel up after lunch. The day had been a bit distracting, I’m quite sure, and we returned to the interstate without the fuel we’d known was needed in order to make it all the way into the city. The city that was to be my new home.  Continue reading →

Push Me

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Push Me!
Demand, I push you back
Open Me Up!
Force, my feelings out
Hold my arms down
Seize my eyes, as they attack yours

Feel it?
Feel that powerful tension
Don’t turn away
I need you to stay

Letting me win
Well, that’s often his way

Push Me, my whispered plea
Make me push you back
Open Me Up, I silently beg
Force my lack of feelings out

The Journey

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. . . So it matters to me . . .

. . . A deliberate path . . .

. . . Time taken, care advised . . .

. . . Focus the journey and stay alive . . .

. . . Mustn’t allow my weakness to flow . . .

. . . It’s all a game, don’t you know . . .

. . . Scratch that, it isn’t you see . . .

. . . My past crushed me . . .

. . . My present a healing hell . . .

. . . My future deliberate, one only I can tell . . .