Margaret pressed her ear against the door.

“Hear anything?”

She flapped her hand in annoyance, signalling Jerry to be quiet.

She closed her eyes, straining to hear through the wood. Jerry paced across the small room behind her. She concentrated on tuning out the dull thud thud thud of his footsteps. Her teeth clenched, biting back a sharp “Shut up!”. If she made any noise at all this close to t...

“It is not even noon yet, but I hereby surrender myself to the universe,” I cried, to Abigail, as if a 16 year-old would actually understand the exasperation of a 40 year-old widow juggling both grief and bad luck.

“Mom, you need to chill, it’s just a jersey” she callously suggested, as I broke down in tears in the parking lot at a middle school soccer match.

Not my finest moment.

Today start...

Dear Diet,

I give up. This relationship isn’t working for me. You were far too controlling and eventually you sucked all the fun out of me. I don’t mean to be blunt; I’m just trying to be honest.

We used to have fun together. You started off with goodness and love towards me. It was enjoyable. We’d go out - out to the park, to the cinema, the shopping mall, food halls... wherever we wanted. An...

"I shall," said the the old man quietly to no one in particular, "surrender myself to outrageous hedonism. And the Devil take the hindmost." He headed towards the garden area of the hotel, his ebook tucked under his arm and a battered bush hat on his ninety year old head. Acres of faded khaki shorts flapped around his bony knees like old sails on the Mary Celeste. His colourless cheesecloth shirt ...

I dropped my gaze, feeling the warm flush in my cheeks. Sneaking a glance back at him from beneath my lashes, I could see he was still looking at me, laughter in his eyes.

We’d been doing this for months, harmless flirting that could be brushed aside as nothing should the other not return our feelings. We both knew it was mutual, but as we’d never said anything, how could we really...know?

I lo...

It came out as a groan, with palms digging into his cheeks, cheese puff powder lining the corner of his mouth.

“Ugh, I surrender.”

“Dude, this is like the third time you’ve forfeited your land.” Derek, who had been keeping track on a notepad from his bean bag chair, counted off tally marks. His calculations were accurate. Josiah had lost every single round since they started playing two months ...

I fought so hard. Everyday, I battled myself, my own consciousness, to stay alive. To stay grounded, as giving in and surrendering would mean death. I did good - I played my guitar, worked hard, treated the love of my life kindly - Yet she took my heart, and wrung it of all it's blood, of all it's life. That, dear reader, is when I surrendered. I entered the hallway bathroom, Do-It razor in my han...

I knew I shouldn't have judged my mother's choice of actions, but I had ran out of excuses from too much time wasted.

After my dad divorced my mother, I understood that she became very depressed, and so did I. Though, I'm not going to lie; losing my dad was hard and very emotional. It took me some time to adjust to the new change.

Unlike my mother, I grew out of my depression to take care of the...

I let myself succumb to the voice in my head. No longer able to hold on to anything around me. I surrender my sanity to the darkness that lives within. The darkness that tempts and coaxes me to it with a voice that drips sugar. That makes everything seem okay. But in reality, it feels like I’m drowning. I can’t do this anymore. I scream at the reflection in the mirror. Cracked lips, tangled thin h...

How could she allow herself to get into such a mess? What was so different about him? She surrendered the entirety of her freedom to this man. She felt whole with him, like she could truly be herself around him. She didn’t know that loving him would come with such a price to pay.

Somehow this man had caused her to fall so deeply in love with him, that she gave up everything she worked so hard...