Trigger warning/suicide

Praying to the Unicorns? No. Not praying.

Begging.

Pleading.

Wailing.

Unicorns are as real as Gods and sons of Gods when

your wrists are slit open. When

you are bleeding out. When

there was no other option, no other person, no other thought, feeling, emotion.

Only desperation.

Praying to the Unicorns makes as much sense as accepted nonsense, water to wine, bread and fishes, invisible power listening, caring, allowing pain and

suffering

no proof of existence.

Unicorns are as real as Gods and sons of Gods when

you are crawling or curled. When

your body spasms. When

your…

I'm far too young to be this old.

I started the aging process a bit younger than most. Not only did I have a full hysterectomy in my 30s, jump-starting menopause, but I have done a lot of damage to my body. I started smoking cigarettes when I was ten. I poured a lot of poison down my throat and have put worse into my veins. I began drinking and using drugs at 13. I continued well into my thirties. I no longer use drugs or even drink beyond the occasional glass of wine or bottle of beer. I do…

What is she doing over there? Eyes glassy. Blank stare? Is that ink in her hair?

Words pressing in her brain. Images went in, they want out again. They are trapped in a prison of fear and shame. The words want out. Now! They are beginning to cause pain.

The small voices speak inside her. They say she is bad; she is wrong, they can’t abide her. She’ll fail. She’ll fall. She’ll stay off the horse. She’ll let it ride her.

Too many years chasing the dragon. The words build and build. She hops on the wagon.

Years and years…

Finance

I love learning new things. To that end, I have been reading articles here on read.cash with my two trusty dictionaries beside me. The Decryptionary and Investopedia. Of course, my Google search bar is just a window away.

The latest word I had to look up was fiat. I researched this article. I had fiats on the brain. So much so that when it came to offering up this week’s micro-story writing prompt in the publication I help to edit, The Bad Influence, I used Fiat. If you like writing prompts, feel free to come to check out some of…

Essay Contest

OK. Sorry, not sorry. That title is definitely clickbait. We have not yet chosen a winner.

This is the roundup of all the wonderful essays submitted for the first-ever monthly essay contest. We editors will need to deliberate to vote the winner. It’s going to be tough! We’ll definitely need a week to choose.

The winner will be announced on the 21st of April. Meanwhile, please read all the essays and comment below. Pick your favorites and see if we agree.

You may find some editors have also written on poverty. Not to worry. We are writers and will write…

50 Words 100 Words

I’ve been studying a lot lately. I’ve gone “back to school” to learn as much as I can about the financial market. Investing, the language surrounding investing, and cryptocurrency. I see cryptocurrency as the future of money.

There are so many words that appear to be English, but in investment jargon do NOT mean what they usually mean. Candlestick, for example, is not something in which you place a candle, but a fancy word for a specific type of graph.

Another word I recently learned is fiat. I mean, I know what fiat means, by declaration or decree, and I…

What qualifies me to teach?

I have very little formal education. I am primarily self-taught with many years of teaching experience.

I taught English, Essay Writing, and 7th-grade Math to adult GED students. I also taught Reading and Writing to English Second Language students. I taught Creative Writing in a men’s home. There, my students were serving out their jail sentence in a halfway house. These students were not in my class voluntarily. We still had a lot of fun, and I think they learned a bit.

“How to” not “what to”

I am still learning and honing my craft…