Haiku 3:11 pm

Your thoughtless gesture
Brought me immediate pain
Treasure me no more

She looked at the haiku, then crumbled up the paper and threw it to the ground with its half dozen predecessors. Why couldn't she write? She needed him to know how badly he'd hurt her, not just as a woman, but as a writer as well. Where did he get off telling her she couldn't write? Just because he had that one piece of flash fiction published in the local community college literary review, that didn't make him Charles Bukowski. Christ, he wasn't even Charles, . . . She stopped to think of another writer named Charles, and couldn't, which made her feel even more miserable than before. And those stupid friends of his in his writers' group, who the fuck were they to comment on anything she wrote? A bunch of wanna bees who thought they were hot shit because they all had blogs. Anybody can have a blog, that doesn't prove how good a writer you are. Hell, it was like gauging your popularity by how many friends you have on face book. She kicked at one of the abortive attempts with the tip of her sneaker. Stupid poetry, she sulked. She kept staring at the floor as the phone began to ring. She went to answer it but stopped when she saw the Caller ID number; it was him. She hesitated, reached for the phone, then chickened out. Let it go into voice mail, she thought to herself.

She waited, then picked up the phone to listen. She tapped her fingers impatiently on the receiver. She heard his flat, nasal tone on the recording.

"Look, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, but if you're going to be a good writer, you need to take criticism better. Your writing won't amount to anything if you don't toughen up. Trust me, I've been published, you know. I know what I'm talking about."

She threw the phone across the room, then stalked to her computer. She opened up her blog and wrote as quickly as possible. She hit Publish Post, then sat back, a satisfied look upon her face.

Toughen your own skin
Community college mags
Do Not Count for Shit!