Just Write!

by Kshatriya

AAAAAHHHHHHH!

with my whole chest. with all my breath. from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. with all the air in my lungs. with all my energy. with all my might.

AAAAAHHHHHHH!

from the fallen-beaten position. from the standing fists-clenched position. from the deepest well. from the tallest building.

AAAAAHHHHHHH!

with the loudest primal voice. with the softest breathless sigh.

AAAAAHHHHHHH!

in the brightest sunlight. in the deepest darkness. in the warmth of my soul. in the coldest part of my heart.

AAAAAHHHHHHH!

for the saddest little girl. for the pissed-off woman. for those who never get the chance to scream. for those who can’t stop screaming.

AAAAAHHHHHHH!

 is a soul-deep, full-body sound that brings peace and starts battles. is the soundtrack in my mind and the rhythm of my blood.

AAAAAHHHHHHH!

Deserves its space. Deserves its voice. Deserves to be heard.

Kshatriya Colet Millick is a labor advocate based in Sonoma County. With a background in counseling and labor relations, Kshatriya brings a perspective shaped by her tumultuous childhood, her work alongside people whose voices have been dismissed, and her commitment to fairness and justice.

Her writing explores living with emotions in a chaotic world, with an emphasis on self-reflection and living with darkness.

When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading dark morally grey books, hanging out with her furbabies, spending time with her nieces and nephews, and having deep conversations sprinkled with dark humor and laughter.

Could be a family reunion, or school, work, organization. Any kind of a reunion.

Have you gone to a reunion?

If yes, how did it go?

If you haven’t gone, why not?

By Patricia Morris

HOME sounds like silence, broken by a refrigerator hum, cackling chickens from next door, the occasional helicopter or small plane buzzing overhead. Home sounds like music sometimes. This afternoon it was Dave Mason, a live album from 1976 that my boyfriend and I listened to on lazy afternoons while smoking joints. Since I live by myself these days, at the end of a dead-end street, with double-paned windows, I do spend a lot of time in utter silence.

FEAR smells like sulphur, a match struck and then extinguished. Fear smells like an ice cold snowy morning, sharp and clarifying. Fear smells like aluminum. Like dead fish in a swimming pool, belly up. Fear smells like a sweaty wrestling mat, like ammonia, like skunk spray drifting into my bedroom window and making my eyes burn in the middle of the night.

DANGER tastes like moldy bread. Like a stiff shot of whiskey. Danger tastes like Pop Tarts; French fries; sometimes like a sheet pan birthday cake from Safeway, the way its sickly sweetness lures you in. Danger definitely tastes like Trader Joe’s Garlic Butter Irish Potato Chips, so addictive you eat a whole bag when you only intended to have “a couple.”

SAFETY feels like a down comforter, like a long, warm hug from my brother. My brother is the best hugger I know, which never fails to surprise me. Safety feels like going somewhere (voluntarily) with a firefighter or a [trusted] police officer – people who are trained to respond in an emergency. Safety feels like a warm, dry home when it’s raining outside, a warm coat, a warm meal.

SECURITY looks like yellow caution tape establishing a boundary. Security looks like money in the bank, like a doctor’s after-visit summary with no adverse findings. Security is a mirage.

Patricia Morris enjoys her silence and writing about everyday life in Petaluma, California.

 Her writing has appeared in Rand McNally’s Vacation America, the Ultimate Road Atlas and The Write Spot anthologies Possibilities and Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year, edited by Marlene Cullen.

She loves road trips, the Grateful Dead, and Dogen.

The mean girls of the garden were stingy with their gifts. Flowering slowly, one bud at a time, then a second and a third they opened, and I tried to make friends with them. But the roses, all of them, pricked and tore and stabbed me with their vicious thorns even through gloves and long sleeves. So I chose to lose them. Let someone else try to tame these She-Devils, these beguiling multi-petal lace-edged beauties whose perfumed faces lured me in, soft as a new lover’s kiss, then stabbed with a pen knife if I leaned too close.

At least Edgar could get along with them. I offered all four blossoming sisters to him – take the pots even because I refuse to dig them out and let them to puncture me more. Here. Take ’em. Maybe you can tame them. At least they will go to a home that is not afraid of a cut or two or four.

I check in with Edgar weeks later. He loves them. They are blooming greedily, hungry for his love, and they seem to adore him. The pinks are shimmering, the reds are ruby and glistening in the sun. He respects them, waters in just the right places where their faces smile up at him. I guess I didn’t give them the respect they deserved. My scratches have healed, dried blood hardened and fallen off in the shower with a good scrub, lotion on my skin to smooth the scabs.

I gave away their prickly beauty, replaced them with thirsty hydrangeas who seem happy to see me, their sphere of delicate petals in purple, blue, and fuchsia. They are abundant and fill the containers, growing happily, gently promising never to hurt or stab me.

I lost the royalty of the roses, the haughty, nose-in-the-air kind of beauty that fascinates the masses, and traded them for the commoner who is kind and forgiving and doesn’t protest when touched. At least my skin is soft again, smooth like hydrangea leaves that welcome my pruning and watering. Indeed, sometimes when I walk into my garden, it appears that the hydrangeas are actually happy to see me. Let Edgar tame the mean girls. I’ll hang with my gal pals.

Julie Sherman is a long-time Petaluma resident who loves to write, read, bake, and travel the world with her husband, bassist Jeff Sherman.

A native San Franciscan, Julie is a mentor with Mentor Me of Petaluma and a member of the Petaluma Postcard Pod, an organization that supports democratic candidates, principles and ideals.

The mother of twin girls, opera singer Camille Sherman and music producer Emily Sherman, Julie resides in a little house with her husband, two cats, and a dog.

When not getting beat up by her garden, she enjoys reading in her modest backyard among the blooms.

Think of an experience that happened at least 10 years ago.

Something you keep thinking about; something that holds your attention, something you can’t let go of, something you can’t shake.

The experience hangs around, reminding you of that time.

It could be a positive thing, or it could be a difficult thing.

Something that has energy for you.

Write the experience in the voice of younger “you” when it happened. Write only what you knew at the time. “This happened, then that happened.”

You don’t have perspective of time having gone by.

Write from the point of view of your younger self.

Prompt 2

That younger person is thought of as the voice of innocence, when you only knew what you experienced at that age, at that time. Since then, you have had more experiences and time to reflect.

Write the experience again using a persona that represents you now, after you have had time to think about what happened.

Prompt 3

Weave the two freewrites together, combining the voice of innocence and the voice of experience.

Reflection by Nicole Zimmerman:

Innocence “reveals the sequence of events, the particulars of your experience,” while Experience “reflects back on the story, the past, and guides the reader through the maze of the experience.”

Inspired by “Innocence & Experience: Voice in Creative Nonfiction” by Sue William Silverman, Brevity, June 20, 2025

Or: You won’t believe what came in the mail today!

Just Write!

Food: Nectarine, watermelon, a roasting turkey, pumpkin pie, coffee

Outdoors: Forest, flowers, trees, beach/sand/ocean, river water, sunscreen, newly cut grass

Misc: New car smell, new baby smell, old familiar smells, cologne/perfume