Deanna Repose Oaks

Poetically Captured Moments From the Heart

Prompt Responses

Prompt 22

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I had to hire a maid just to clean my dad’s fridge out. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I opened the door and had to take a shower just from the smell, and still I felt the funk clinging to me. Just thinking about opening the door again had me back in the shower two more times before the maid showed up. While she cleaned, I stayed outside in my car.

While waiting, I called my sister. Apparently, she kept adding food to the fridge without taking anything out unless the new food wouldn’t fit, and she was only taking stuff out from the front. She thought someone was cleaning it between times. I don’t know how she didn’t SMELL the fridge. I can still smell it and I’ve been sitting in the clean car for over an hour.

How do people live like that? I can’t even think about having that much filth in my house let alone my fridge. I hope the maid can get that fridge clean. I don’t know if I can go back in there if she can’t. I should have visited more often, checked in. He hated how fidgety I got I when couldn’t clean, and I couldn’t see him hate.

Prompt 21

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My best friend has like 5 siblings, she is never alone and she is always complaining that she doesn’t have any time or space or clothes or video games or anything that isn’t shared. She’s never had new clothes, as she is smack dab in the middle of everyone and there are at least two siblings that wore her size last year. I want those problems.

I have no siblings. No one to share stories with. No one to borrow clothes from. My mom and dad are great, but they really have no clue. Who cares about Nirvana anymore? They don’t even know what this world is about. They do not know how hard it is to be a teenager in this day and age, and I’m not going to fill them in, ever. Sure, I always have new clothes and I always have time and space and my own stuff. But, I also have no one else to blame if the kitchen is a mess or my clothes are everywhere.

I asked my mom if she would adopt my friend, that way we could both get what we want. We have 2 guest rooms in our house, so she would have her own room, her own clothes, her own everything… I and would have my own sister. But it’s not going to happen. Bummer.

Prompt 19

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I am scared of ants. It started when I heard the story of the girl who had an ant crawl into her ear and lay eggs. Every time I see them, I feel them crawling on me for three or more days.

I am also very scared of rats. A company I worked for moved into a building that had an infestation of epic proportions. The exterminators were catching them for WEEKS. Two fell through the ceiling tiles over my head while I was on the phone with a client. I was fired on the spot and have been fearing them ever since.

But what I am most afraid of is: success. Every time I get close to it, I run away, cowering behind whatever I can find. The vastness of what success means is overwhelming. It is something I have always feared most of all, ever since I can remember. I don’t know what triggered it or how it forced me to fail on purpose at every turn. I do know how I feel as I fail, closer to success and afraid to try again. The fear has gotten so crippling lately that I have locked myself in my room.

Prompt 18

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I want to use my time to accomplish three things in my lifetime: 1. Earn a JD. 2. Pass the bar exam. 3. Prove the courts were corrupt when they tried my case and get it overturned.

Since my arrest, I have learned that I cannot trust anyone. My lawyers, that my parents paid for, did me a disservice. They didn’t even talk to the witnesses, the witnesses that would have told the truth. They relied solely on the evidence that the “victims” planted against me. The whole thing was a setup. Without those witnesses, and there were plenty of them at that blow-out party, everything fell to the side of the state. Then, my friends (the witnesses), neglected to stick around when the police showed up, like we were doing something wrong. We weren’t. They are totally willing to testify to that now, especially since any drug or alcohol tests they take now will be negative. My girl, who believes that I am capable of doing what I am accused of. Couldn’t even count on her as a character witness.

Now, all I have to do is find a mail-order school that will give out a JD and a way to take a bar exam from behind bars.

Prompt 17

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I wish I never inherited this chocolate factory from my dad…

I started floating on the chocolate river after I heard about the golden ticket winners. There was one boy, I think his name was Augustus. He fell in the river and was sucked up through the pipes. Before I heard the story, I always swam. After the story, I started fearing the pipes so much, I now float with a boat.

Since I can no longer drink directly from the river like I used to do when I was floating, I always bring my cup so I can scoop out chocolate to drink. I spend hours and hours and hours on the river of chocolate, drinking every day. I really should stop at some point, but there really isn’t anything else to do with my time. The chocolate flows down the river and the money flows into the bank. The Oompa Loompas take care of everything else.

I don’t know what my dad used to do to fill his time. Even though our house was on the factory property, we were never allowed in the factory when he was working. He never shared his secrets with me, even though I asked.

Prompt 16

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I got lost on purpose yesterday. I wanted to see if I could find my way home from an unfamiliar place. You can learn a lot about the community if you turn off your GPS, take a different street than your normal commute, and take your time finding your way home. I found a great taco place, the kind where the menu is only in Spanish and ordering in English is a lot harder than it looks. I also found a really nice park with a pond and a mile-long walking trail. I never knew these places existed before yesterday because I was always following GPS.

Lately, I have become more and more fearful of technology outages – will I survive one? In order to reassure myself from time to time that I can find my way home, I turn off my GPS. I never want to depend solely upon my GPS because I’d end up being more like a dog rather than a cat. If you drop a dog 2 miles from your house on the street and they can’t find their way back. A cat can be left 100 miles away from home and they turn back up on your porch.