i’d like to meet a person who takes pride in this country and isn’t corrupt or overeducated and underemployed yet still willing to spend 9 bucks on an IPA because they know there’s something so delicate about porches and dizzy the slow and the white the IPA tastes like privilege rebelled - sunny …
Describe Nearly Drowning
Bodies float alive on the Dead Sea. The Atlantic is an opaque ocean of dead bodies, and I’m gasping for breaths in between. Twenty three, the therapist diagnosed me. And there’s pills for that, he said. So I became an island nestled between salt and a hard place. Western medicine dehydrates my faith in humanity. …
I Was Not Sorry
Hey kid - it's me. Just called to see if you’re around tonight. I could use a friend tonight. It’s after Labor Day, and I'd been thinking the summer crowd leaving would make breathing easy, but aside from the drowning, I don’t think I’m sleeping and - Hey kid - you there? I’m back now. …
Where Do You Go To Escape
Oh wondrous outlaw waving at bandwagons as they pass, Shackled not by this century's elusive systems, Nor blinded by false definitions of success, Tell me: Where am I to go but venture into the valleys Of creative souls to pick at the well-edited scraps Of former gold mines untapped? I am a modern day Mary …
Write a poem about a tomato
I found a tomato In a salad On the 4th of July, And what a wonder that is For no other reason than Tomatoes make me cry. Normally I’d suppress my tears, Make like our forefathers And spit on my fears, But for tomatoes I make an exception. They're simply far too evil For …
A Strange Girl Who Hides Herself Under Layers and Layers of Clothing
There’s a kid out there, And he’s gotta have it worse: That’s what I told myself When my parents’ words Set fire to every single thought About that girl I knew to be right. The kids used to laugh Because I guess I dressed like a guy; It was a whispered sort of laugh, …
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Describe ascent using the most innovative, outrageous metaphors, similes, and physical descriptions you can think of.
Ascent went surfing after the hurricane Blew down her house. She dodged doorknobs in the waves, Then went back out the next day. Ascent organized a file cabinet And went on a coffee run, Then told his future employer What a great internship that was. Ascent hugged her son When he said Mom, …
A child needs to do one thing over and over to calm himself down when the adults get angry. What does he do? How does he learn it?
A foot's tap Is his music, A bird's chirp: That's his music. And at six, Vibrating his lips, Slapping his knees, And a clock's tick Puts Max to sleep. Mother's expletives Sound best With eyes shut. And a bottle's clink When thrown at the sink Is Max's music. Shutting one ear Then opening it again Changes …
Pick a country, and imagine we’ve been at war with it for fourteen years. Write a love story in that world.
Bring our troops home Is a type of joke all it’s own Because all we’ve ever known is war. Developments are two steps back, And casualties are currency To the comfortable and corrupt. The deadliest battles Are slipped under the rug, And Momma writes letters Because she doesn’t sleep too much. They say we don’t …
Find a photograph. Write the story of what’s happening outside the frame.
Outside the frame, it’s 7 in the morning. Outside the frame, it’s cloudy, late August. Outside the frame and two hours prior, Em drove us to the beach and It was decided later on, Recalling our lack of shoes in the bagel shop, That we might’ve still been drunk. Outside the frame, the beach …
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642 Things to Write About 