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19. Complete: Be inspired by a project or task be completed – whether it’s crossing something off the never-ending to-do list, or a project you have worked on for a long time. https://thinkwritten.com/poetry-prompts/
To do: X Wake up Get out of bed Get dressed Take a shower Clean the never-ending pile of clothes on my floor Leave my room For the first time in days Let’s try to not be alone today Okay? Cook myself a meal Something real Instead of uncooked ramen And bags of stale chips Brush my hair Try not to stare At my face For too long Go on a walk They say that the sunshine Is good for a melancholy mood Go to therapy That’d be a start Go to see some friends Oh Um Nevermind To do: X Wake up Get out of bed
1 Comment
TW: suicide
It’s not over by @growyourpoetry on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CfYyXlgKnz5/ If I could tell her one thing If I had one last moment with her I’d let her know That it’s not over That someday Maybe the pain wouldn’t cease But it would ease And be drowned out By the splendid colors of joy I’d tell her that someday The plagues of her past Wouldn’t haunt her every day That she’d find love That she’d find a purpose A reason to keep going I’d tell her That it’s not over That it’s never over Not really Not until you pull the trigger 28. Poison: Describe something toxic and its effects on a person. https://thinkwritten.com/poetry-prompts/
You’re toxic You drew me in With pretty words and gentle touches Like a moth to a flame Or a mouse to a trap You promised safety, shelter Arms to hide in Arms to hide from Why do you detest my arms? Why can’t I hold you? You promised love You promised fun Your lips tasted like candy But they felt like poison Sinking into my skin Infecting my brain With your words With your hate It’s been years Why won’t you get out of my head? I guess it’s too late For the antidote Write a story about two characters who have been fighting for so long, they can’t remember what started it.https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/general/write-a-story-about-two-characters-who-have-been-f/
Her eyes blaze. Then again, when do her eyes not blaze? Her angry words catch in my chest, lump in my throat. Whereas they might’ve once set me alight with her—a match to a puddle of gasoline—now, they just make me tired. How long have we been having this same argument? This same fight but in different fonts? I sigh. “What?” she snaps in response. “I’m tired.” “Then go to bed.” “I don’t mean sleepy. I’m tired, Jaden.” I run a hand down my face. “What is this?” “I could ask you the same question.” “Do you even remember why we’re fighting over this?” Her brows furrow and her mouth opens, ready to jump into another heated retort, but nothing comes out. She pauses, frowning. “I—I asked if you, if we, could talk about our future and you said—” “I listened. And I said that marriage wasn’t something that I could ever do, and you kept telling me you wanted it. Hell, Jaden, we’ve been having this same fight every day for three months.” “Not every day,” she pouts. “There’s been some good days.” “Some,” I concede. “But they’re always ruined by the bad ones. The wondering when the next fight is going to be.” She doesn’t have anything to say to that. “I’m tired of fighting with you all the damn time.” “Me too.” “So we need to stop this, love.” I cross my arms. “I don’t want to keep fighting. I know it hurts you, and I’m sorry for that, but I’ll never get married.” Her eyes light with angry fire once more. “See, this is why we keep fighting. You’re so fucking stubborn. Have you even thought this through at all? No, you’ve just made up your mind.” “That’s not true,” I say as gently as I can. “I’ve thought about it every day since we’ve been together. I wish that I could change this. If nothing else, it’d make you happy. But I can’t.” “Why not?” “You know about my parents.” “Why does it matter what happened to them? We’re different.” “We’ve fought for three months straight, and we’re not even engaged. What’s to stop it from becoming ten, twenty, thirty years if we’re married?” “So what? You’re just…giving up on all of this?” “I’m not saying that—” “But you are. Marriage is a part of the deal for me,” she says. “I’ve been dreaming about this since I was a little girl. I need that commitment, that agreement to keep trying.” “And a relationship isn’t enough?” “No, it’s not. If you think that you’re going to get trapped with me, then it’s not.” She hunches into herself. “If marriage is a deal-breaker for you, then we can’t keep doing this.” “Yeah,” I say. “I guess it is.” She looks up at me, her eyes wide and scared—as much as she tries to hide it. It breaks my heart. I wish that things could be different, but I don’t tell her that. “So…we’re done?” “Yeah,” I sigh. “We’re done.” “Do you miss me yet?” From me! My post on dialogue prompts on my instagram, @writerial_ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd8V39krrpH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
My finger hovers over the send button. The world around me looks a tad fuzzy. It sways for a moment before falling back into place. I’m not sure whether it’s the alcohol in my system or the general lack of my self-preservation that made me think that this was a good idea. The two are battling the ounce of self-control still in my head. He’s putting up a valiant fight, but he’s not winning. Anyone can see that. My finger hits the screen. It only takes a moment for the text underneath to change from “Delivered” to “Read at 1:16 AM”. I watch as the dots appear, go away, appear again. “What???” I frown. What’s there to be confused about? I once again type my message, though the typos are more apparent this time around. “Do yuo miss mr yet?” More dots, then, “Charlie are you drunk?” “No,” I type back. “Jusr tipsy.” I can practically hear Jamal’s sigh from the other end of the phone. “Charlie, you’ve gotta go to sleep man.” “I’m nor tired.” Idiot. Like I’d be texting him if I was tired. “Uyo didm’t answer my quesrion.” The dots appear, go away, and then appear again. “I don’t know how you want me to answer that.” How do I want him to answer that? Do I want him to miss me? I’m not sure. I frown at my phone. “Idk.” “So then I just won’t answer it,” he says. “And you can get some sleep and we can all pretend this never happened, alright?” “No,” I reply immediately. “I wanns answer.” Dot dot dot. Dot dot dot. They go away, then reappear. The process repeats. I pout angrily at the phone, willing a response to come through. But it seems Jamal is as indecisive as ever. I have to wait for what seems like an eternity before he says, “Don’t make me answer that Charlie.” “I’m not naking you do antyhing,” I say immediately. “I miss uyo.” “I know.” “I likr you a lot uyo know.” “I know.” “Wht don’t you likr me?” There’s no response to that, so I double down. “I mran, you sais that uyo were curoius so why not mr?” I wait. The dots appear, then disappear. “You make me scared, Charlie,” he says. “You make me feel things that I didn’t know that I could feel.” A pause. “Now please just go to sleep. We can talk about this when you’re sober.” “I sm sobre,” I say. But I don’t say anything further. I turn off my phone and stretch out on my couch, not trusting my body to get me to my bedroom without falling over. I curl into myself and let myself fall into a deep, restless sleep. Write a story that either starts (or ends) with someone saying, “Please, don’t do it.” https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/drama/write-a-story-699218ed-c11b-4e78-8007-4afbcd989f1d/
A bead of sweat rolled down my brow, my chest pounding. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. My eyes dart back and forth. The room is empty. There’s clutter. There’s no possible weapons. There’s no way to escape. I look at him, finally. His eyes are flickering with flames of rage. His jaw works itself back and forth, back and forth. I try to glare back at him. I try to match the rage, the dignity that he holds in every facet of his being. But it’s a futile effort. I was never as brave as him. I was never as strong. That’s how we wound up here. “What are you doing, Nes?” he asks. His voice isn’t disdainful or uptight, just sad. “What I have to.” “Nes, c’mon. You have another choice.” “I don’t,” I sob. My arms shake, my hold wavering. “I can’t give you what you want. I can’t make you happy.” “All I want is you,” he says with a frown. “You don’t have to give in to them.” “Yes I do.” “No you don’t!” His foot stomps on the ground. “Just come with me. It’s not too late. I don’t want you to become the thing that they’re trying to turn you into.” I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. But he doesn’t understand. He has to understand. “Do you remember that time when we visited my family on Thanksgiving a few years ago? What was it? Five? Right after you got that big promotion.” He nods. “I remember.” My eyes blaze. “And do you remember what she said?” “She was wrong, Nes.” “‘You will always be broken, Vanessa,’” I say, ignoring him. “‘You will always hurt people.’” “So what, you’re proving her right?” “What other choice do I have?” “Come with me. Drop the gun. Get out of here.” His voice is so warm, so nice. If I wanted to, I could fool myself into thinking that was in the cards for me. That I really could jump into his arms. That I could be protected. That I could be a good person. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be the person they want you to be.” “So I can become the person you want me to be?” I ask, my arms shaking. “How is that fair? When does someone start caring about the person I want to be? At least here I have power. At least I’m not scared all the time.” “Don’t try to tell me that you’re not scared right now, Nes. I know you better than that.” “You don’t know anything,” I spit. He frowns. “C’mon Nes, please. Please don’t do it.” “Give students two completely unrelated phrases, then have them write twelve lines of dialogue connecting the two” by @oliviagatwood on Instagram, suggested by @aly_son.c
“I called, but the line was disconnected.” “So you thought that you should just…show up?!” “I know that things between us have been tough—” “Tough?!” “But I was making a recipe—” “Ah, so you haven’t given up on that yet.” “Can you please just not be such a dick for once? I thought that I got everything but I forgot saffron—” “Pity.” “—and the stores are closed—” “I don’t see how that’s my problem.” “And I was just wondering if you had any saffron that I could borrow.” “No. I don’t. Can you go now?” “Oh come on. You really expect me to believe that you don’t have any saffron left over from when we lived together? I used it in, like, every recipe.” “The last time I had saffron in my house was back when I still loved you.” What is home? (@growyourpoetry) https://www.instagram.com/p/CdsmxpUqYL0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
A place to come back to A place to feel safe Where the demons can’t touch you A shield held above your head Warm arms in your bed Always so protected When I’m in your arms Until the warmth in my heart Turned to flames Burning my head Burning my heart Where did you go? What happened to us? What happened to me? What is home? I’m all alone Write a poem from the perspective of a royal. -Anonymous
Steel, gold, silver, bronze Weighing on my neck It creaks and groans And narrowly breaks I can barely hold its weight The people are watching The people are rioting The people are pleading for help I’m trying I’m trying, I promise But how am I supposed to help The thousands of people The people who need me When I can barely escape The noose around my own neck So many people dream About sparkling, shiny crowns They tend to abet They tend to forget The pressure, the weight, the pain The weight of the crown It holds me down I’m trying to fight I’m trying to stumble But the kingdom It’s starting to crumble For this week, let's do something a little different: Write about two characters who are pyromaniacs. Are they in cahoots? Are they rivals? Do they live in the same place or discover each other online? Let your imagination go wild! https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/sparks-fly
It burns. Everything burns. The world around me, everything I’ve ever built, turns to ashes all around me. Slowly, everything falls apart. I should have expected this outcome, really. Everyone always warned me. “You can’t fight fire with fire.” But how could I do anything different? I’d been raised with flames in my blood, an inferno in my head. Some people were taught with rain on their lips and rivers in their words. They build, they nourish, they water the ground for more life to grow from their bones. But when you’re only taught how to destroy—how to burn the earth to ashes around you—you don’t know anything different. Water beats fire, afterall. The only thing that can beat damage is creation. More damage doesn’t stop it, it only fuels the flames higher. I hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. I thought I knew the feeling of getting burned. No one told me of this pain. How it would pale in comparison to the tiny scratches and blisters I’d sustained before. No amount of water or ice or cold could take the burning heat from my body. Behind the flames came scarred, burning flesh. I couldn’t care. None of the pain was any worse than the betrayal of it all. She told me that she could be trusted. She told me that she’d take care of me—that she’d take care of us. Even though everyone warned me about her, I followed her into the flames. I trusted that she’d lead me safely through the smoke. She was a lifeline, pulling me through a disaster that she had crafted. And I thanked her. I shudder at the fact now, but nothing could stop my past actions. Hell, nobody else could. When there was fire all around you, you couldn’t exactly see the red flags. Most of them had been burned to the ground. I sighed. Everyone had told me not to play with fire. But I had kissed her beautiful face, laughing as the heat caressed my skin, as the smoke caught in my throat. I reveled in the warmth of it as she burned me alive. I wish I had listened. |
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