Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Fiction Friday: The Bra

By Tania Runyan 4 Comments

As I continue my journey through The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, I continue to be amazed by how a simple writing prompt can suddenly open a new world of characters, events and emotions. After just a few minutes of writing, I get to meet people I never knew existed and learn their stories, listen to what they have to say. This week, I responded to a prompt encouraging me to write a story revolving around an article of clothing. So, readers, in honor of awkward adolescents everywhere, let us celebrate the sacred first bra.      

___________

Ashley had wanted a bra since spring, but she didn’t know how to bring it up to her mother. They didn’t talk about woman stuff. Whenever Ashley tried to linger by the Intimates at Wal-Mart, her mother would quicken the pace. She didn’t know if her mother denied or simply hadn’t noticed that her daughter was growing up. “Stop picking at that, ” she’d say when Ashley scraped her thumbnail over a zit, but that was pretty much it. She had to take her hairy legs into her own hands with her dad’s razor. And periods! She lived in daily horror of the bleed-through, like what happened to Emma in fifth grade band before the nurse had given the puberty talk.

But Ashley was reminded of her bra needs daily. The start of seventh grade was broiling hot, and there was no hiding herself in tank tops and T-shirts. “Gonna launch those torpedoes?” Chase snorted in the hallway. She stared longingly at the girls who got their straps snapped daily by the boys. They leaned back in their desks, strap outlines pressing through their shirts. When the teacher turned around, the boys would pull, the room filling with the sound of cracking whips. “Ow! Do-on’t!” the girls would yell, and they’d adjust their shoulders and sigh as if wearing a bra were the biggest burden in the world. But the last straw was when the social studies teacher, Mr. Marz, pacing the aisles in an impassioned speech about Plessy v. Ferguson, suddenly spread his arms and whacked one of Ashley’s loose boobs, which seemed to dangle in eerie silence for an eternity. Of course, he said nothing. But they both knew. It was time.

The next morning, Ashley snuck into her mom’s room and dug around for the smallest bra she could find. She slipped it over her shoulders and tried to reach back to attach it. No luck. She had remembered seeing her mom do some upside down twist and spin, but whatever she attempted resulted in a convoluted mess. Finally, she got at least one hook done. The cups sagged, but at least they would provide a barrier between her and the rest of the world.

In algebra the next morning, she leaned back in her seat. She had made sure to wear a pale yellow tank that accentuated the straps. “What have we here?” said Chase behind her. She pretended not to hear but shifted in her seat in preparation for her elastic entrance into adult society. Finally, his thick fingers landed on her back. She felt the strain and closed her eyes…but when he let go, no snap. The one hook came undone, and the straps dropped to her armpits. Chase cleared his throat.

Photo by ErinKPhoto, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Tania Runyan, author of A Thousand Vessels.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois, a sort-of suburb, sort-of small town, where the deer and the minivans play. She's a 2011 NEA fellow and mama to four poetry books—A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, Delicious Air, and What Will Soon Take Place—and three (much cuter and noisier) human children. Tania is also the author of five non-fiction books—Making Peace with Paradise, How To Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, How to Write a Form Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay. Visit her at TaniaRunyan.com
Tania Runyan
Latest posts by Tania Runyan (see all)
  • Flowers of California: California Poppy - December 8, 2022
  • Flowers of California: Lily of the Nile - October 13, 2022
  • Flowers of California: Crape Myrtle - October 5, 2022

Filed Under: Blog, Fiction, Short Story

Try Every Day Poems...

About Tania Runyan

Tania Runyan lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois, a sort-of suburb, sort-of small town, where the deer and the minivans play. She's a 2011 NEA fellow and mama to four poetry books—A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, Delicious Air, and What Will Soon Take Place—and three (much cuter and noisier) human children. Tania is also the author of five non-fiction books—Making Peace with Paradise, How To Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, How to Write a Form Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay. Visit her at TaniaRunyan.com

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    September 14, 2012 at 10:04 am

    Fiction that it so true-to-life!

    Reply
  2. Diana Trautwein says

    September 14, 2012 at 10:35 pm

    Oh, man. SUCH a tough time of life. You have captured it perfectly.

    Reply
  3. Tania Runyan says

    September 15, 2012 at 10:57 pm

    Thank you, Maureen and Diana!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Hug a Writer | Tweetspeak Poetry says:
    October 12, 2012 at 8:02 am

    […] also, I confess, feel annoyed. I am struggling to compose a post for Tania Runyan, one of those writers I tweet-hugged. Goodness knows I’ve had plenty of time to think about […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy