D'abord, la nourriture: choisissez ce qui est bon pour le corps et l'âme. Lequel? Vous devez quelque chose de substance, ce qui donne de la force à votre sang.
Ensuite, préparez l'habitat. Vous n'avez pas besoin de beaucoup d'espace, sauf ce qui est assez pour vous, et ce qui vous évoque un sens de confort. Bien sûr, la sortie doit être fermée à clé.
Après, réfléchissez sur votre inspiration. Qu'est-ce que vous voulez écrire? Pourquoi? Et pour qui? Un lecteur doit être toujours dans vos pensées, parce que vous n'etes jamais seule.
Finalement, regardez le démon. Ne vous inquiétez pas: pour votre l'âme, il fera preuve de son miséricorde. Recevez son don... et les mots viendront. Dites rien aux autres de leurs origines.
Suivez les instructions et tout se passera bien.
cw: death
i don’t know.
we build communities and monuments, cults and towers, to try and find out.
prompt as question and response
It’s quiet.
My days used to be filled with music. I would rise with a gentle, wordless melody and patiently wait for you to wake so our duet may begin. I’ve never been a loud person but you made me musical. Together, we could sing an imperfect chorus every time. Like jazz, it was ruckus, it was noise, it was good and it was fun.
Today, I wake up in the dawn and it is so quiet.
The memory is still fresh, we’d rehearsed our final verse as last night melted into morning. We’d looked at each other, singing harmony but my lines echoed just a beat behind yours. And afterwards, I didn’t sleep – how could I?
How could I sleep when – in that moment, we were Stevie looking at Lindsay in 1982: unable to look away, chained together by this angry, anguished dissonance. A furious rage possessed every note that brought our song closer to its end, but we didn’t stop until it was over.
And now, the sun is rising and the rage is gone. It is quiet and I miss you.
But like everybody else who has ever loved and lived, I must face the dawn.
I think of a song we never sang together, one with no anger in the words, only a grieving acceptance. My favourite part goes:
the war is over and we are beginning,
here it comes, here comes the first day,
it starts up in our bedroom after the war.
I sing it to myself, not quite giving voice to the notes. My whisper fades to silence and I take a shaky breath, my cheeks wet and my chest heaving.
It will take time – more dawns and midnights than I can count – but I will remember how to sing a solo again.
prompt as question and response
She comes to my mind first, with her bright smirk. A teenager who knew it all, who’d done it all, who led the way with her youthful spirit. At twenty-something, she still liked to call cola ‘rum’ and pretend to be a pirate as she drank it.
Our ages are a contradiction: she’ll always be older and wiser in my memory but next year, I’ll be older than she’ll ever be.
I wrote her a poem once, I hope she got a chance to read it. I lost the email and I forgot how it goes.
I can’t think of love without also remembering grief.
He’s an angel dozing in the morning sunlight. He forgets to text sometimes (and so do I). He finds a challenge and sees nothing but the next step in front of him, and then the next, and then the next. He keeps going.
I’ve learnt so much.
I’m re-learning how to want things again: I want to touch, I want to cry, I want to part the southern sea between us.
We’re an oh moment, accompanied with wide, beaming smiles. But somehow, our moment doesn’t end, only pauses for air. One day, I’ll figure out the exact science of how we met, how our moment keeps happening, how we keep going.
For now, I have just this moment and it is good.
The house is held together by… a force I can’t name. It’s some miraculous, binding formula of truth and lies, words used to hurt and silences used to soothe. Love and all its complications.
Is it nosy questions about a toad’s religious beliefs? Is it inside jokes about an infamous Wookie temper and clumsy, fiddling hands? Is it subtle judgements of love like 'you eat instant noodles everyday now’ and 'take this vitamin supplement’? Or is it the mystery of never-ending generosity?
I know it’s not the unspoken truths that we tiptoe around. Like her cooking is getting worse; there is no god but there may be comfort; time is passing faster than any of us know.
Time is passing… time is passing so fast.
I think it’s her, I think she’s the force holding this house together.
I think of friendship in two ways: before and after I met you. (I don’t think I could go back to the way I used to do things.)
There’ll always be two chairs reserved for you in my cosy home, so have some tea and vegan cookies and tell me about your day.
Tell me more, tell me everything.
Do you sometimes feel rather like a woodland critter? Me too! I thought I was the only one.
I feel like I am newly rehabilitated in the woods where I was born. I think I’m doing what I was always meant to do: snuffle and explore and find the next little morsel to eat? It feels familiar but my paws are still clumsy and new.
But in these woods, I’ve made a new friend, one who’s hunting for the same thing, our paths overlapping in the undergrowth. My friend is a kind and wise critter, cute as a button and tougher than they look.
I’m not very good at this critter business of being myself yet, but as I learn, I’m glad I get to share and roam these woodlands with you.
My name is sam. I am seven years old. I have a tortoise named Sally. She is one year old. Her name is because she has a shell but I don’t like the name 'Shelly’.
A tortoise is NOT a turtle, because they live on land. If they have a stumpy tail, they’re a girl but honestly, who knows?
They like to eat lettuce. Animal poop is gross.
I packed the past into a suitcase. Photos, birthday cards, diaries, I brought it all with me when I moved. It contained all the remaining evidence of a life I used to live, the lingering touches of a place I would never return to.
It was heavy with meaning and memory and I never unpacked it.
Some part of me feared that in breaking the seals, I might tarnish the contents in some way. In a new light, under layers of dust, would it look different, empty, with something irreplaceably missing?
To open it would shed light on the mystery like a final farewell.
But -
Years later, I wonder.
If I looked inside now, might time have healed old wounds? Would the holes be sealed and the heavy absence replaced with lightness? Could memories still bring me joy without also the accompanying grief?
I don’t know why but the suitcase is getting lighter and lighter. I’ve grown lighter, with every day that takes me further into my life.
I think I’ll be ready to open the suitcase some day soon.
prompt as question and response
in the hour when all is stripped bare
in the shadows before sunrise
i whispered to you:
yes, i did mean for it to hurt you
and all quiet-like, you said to me:
so did i
and so healed we, together
in the dawn of our confessions
#poetry #prompts #nosebleedclub
prompt as a question