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I don't normally do writing exercises, even when recommended by other writers I love and admire. However, this one hooked me. It's called Promptly Writing and came from a LJ site I was directed to by SomethingxTrue's ficsite. The way it works is you get one prompt a day; sentence, phrase, or word. You take ten minutes and write whatever that prompt inspires in whatever format you like. Sometimes it comes out silly, sometimes it comes out horrid, but sometimes it gives you a push to something that has potential, or that in and of itself is wonderful.
Today's word was LIST.
List:
List everything he meant to me, in simple steps, they said. Impossible to do, I replied, and they shook their heads and told me again about the stages of grief.
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
I just look at them and shake my head, turn away. That isn't grief, not for me, not now. I never denied his loss. My anger has never faded. There is no God for me to bargain him back from. I am not depressed. And I cannot accept going on without him. That is not my grief.
My grief is the hollow ache below my breastbone where my heart beat to mirror his. It is the cold whisper of the sheets across my bed that is nothing but a grave without him there to hold me in the night. It's the reflection of light on glass that echoes the brilliance in his eyes, or the sheen of his dark hair as he curled around his guitar like a lover. Nothing reminds me of him, everything throws back his echoes. How can that become a simple list? Can a list describe the words he spoke, sometimes in accented English, sometimes in French as liquid and melting as honey in the sun? Can black words on white paper reduce his eyes from their beauty, that wild world of thunderclouds and promise, lightning and pain and love that I believed would conquer all? How can I make a list over every moment spent in his arms, by his side, with my soul mated to his? I can't.
Instead I list the white things around me. White walls, white floors. White coats, white shoes, white gowns that bare white buttocks to needles. White lies, white noise, white pills. Blank white stretches of oblivion where nothing can touch me anymore. White bandages around my wrists, white band around my arm, white spaces in what used to be a life full of color and sound. White heat behind my eyes that spills over and leaves new white scars down my cheeks, acid burns of loss.
I grieve, I want to tell them. I'm not sick, I'm dead. I'm lost, and you won't let him find me. I'm done with mourning, I want mortality. I want to follow him to whatever hell he found peace in. I don't miss him - I've just gone blind. He's right here, I just can't see him anymore. I don't want help. I don't want reassurances and empty promises. I just want to go home.
I like this exercise. I actually kind of like what it brought out, even though I can see the technical flaws in it and the angsty emo-esque glare from here, five minutes after finishing it.
So, there it is... and I thought some of the Lit crowd might like to take a crack at it for sherbert and giggles. I'm debating putting it into Troublemakers Ink and seeing if others like this exercise as well.
Today's word was LIST.
List:
List everything he meant to me, in simple steps, they said. Impossible to do, I replied, and they shook their heads and told me again about the stages of grief.
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
I just look at them and shake my head, turn away. That isn't grief, not for me, not now. I never denied his loss. My anger has never faded. There is no God for me to bargain him back from. I am not depressed. And I cannot accept going on without him. That is not my grief.
My grief is the hollow ache below my breastbone where my heart beat to mirror his. It is the cold whisper of the sheets across my bed that is nothing but a grave without him there to hold me in the night. It's the reflection of light on glass that echoes the brilliance in his eyes, or the sheen of his dark hair as he curled around his guitar like a lover. Nothing reminds me of him, everything throws back his echoes. How can that become a simple list? Can a list describe the words he spoke, sometimes in accented English, sometimes in French as liquid and melting as honey in the sun? Can black words on white paper reduce his eyes from their beauty, that wild world of thunderclouds and promise, lightning and pain and love that I believed would conquer all? How can I make a list over every moment spent in his arms, by his side, with my soul mated to his? I can't.
Instead I list the white things around me. White walls, white floors. White coats, white shoes, white gowns that bare white buttocks to needles. White lies, white noise, white pills. Blank white stretches of oblivion where nothing can touch me anymore. White bandages around my wrists, white band around my arm, white spaces in what used to be a life full of color and sound. White heat behind my eyes that spills over and leaves new white scars down my cheeks, acid burns of loss.
I grieve, I want to tell them. I'm not sick, I'm dead. I'm lost, and you won't let him find me. I'm done with mourning, I want mortality. I want to follow him to whatever hell he found peace in. I don't miss him - I've just gone blind. He's right here, I just can't see him anymore. I don't want help. I don't want reassurances and empty promises. I just want to go home.
I like this exercise. I actually kind of like what it brought out, even though I can see the technical flaws in it and the angsty emo-esque glare from here, five minutes after finishing it.
So, there it is... and I thought some of the Lit crowd might like to take a crack at it for sherbert and giggles. I'm debating putting it into Troublemakers Ink and seeing if others like this exercise as well.
I adore you, milord. And ty.
