2026 preface: I was going through old drafts and came across this, originally penned in January 2020. I forgot to publish it so sharing it now.
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Creatively Bruised
I once knew a girl, not yet a woman; a note scratch-er, not yet a writer.
Despite her solo travels and trips far away, it was always the cities that led her astray. Where the wine is sweet and the water so foul can a woman be everything and nothing. But do her words twist enough like the mighty Thames, enough to charm the captive fish-eyed audience, or do they fall on deaf ears, washed away down the gutters like tumbling acidic rain on hard black soil? In such temperate climates as this, only the toss of rich man’s coin can decide a person’s fate.
Until that day, when the coin spins true, she must continue to bruise herself against the glass as a fly of hope searching for an opening of luck. She must work hard, but network harder; a friendly face, but a fire starter. She must drink water from spring’s trickle and never from the blistered and swollen mouth of the engorged black river.
I once knew a girl, not yet a woman; a note scratch-er, not yet a writer.
(Penned by AEB, January 2020)
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My Housemate's a Mermaid 