Today’s Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge, is “frog.” My nephew told me that my next bokeh filter should be a frog a while ago. I’m glad I finally made it. I like how it turned out.
OctPoWriMo
Today’s prompt is “ode.” The 2018 prompt was “Tortured.” I like the contrast of writing a tortured poem of praise. It really captures the chaotic loss of control of love.
The Tuesday Writing Prompt at Go Dog Go Café is to write a poem without using the words “the” and “and.” I think this constraint could work well with sonic surrender, so I’m going to give it a try.
Today’s Poetics prompt at the dVerse Poets Pub: to write my way out of a place of pain, fits so perfectly with my thoughts of an ode to tortured love, it’s as if Ingrid was in my head this morning.
Oh, my Torture, this Love
When pain reigns, thrilling
heightened awareness glaring
nerves sparking with life
firing toward limitations
creating tense-muscled suspense
extremes of what I can stand
Is it fear that brings me here?
Does my flesh believe it will tear?
Warning of peril from unlimited pleasure
chaotic behavior when overwhelming
pre-frontal processes, living uninhibited
In dizzying free-fall, Contusia
dazed in a haze, purples
sensitive to touch, crazed
obsessive worries in separation
so unstable wobbles, topples hobbled
drained faint–that in-between pain
like frogs hopping perilously
across back roads in thick morning fog
brought on by a pond squashed in grills every year
I am drawn to danger, red cayenne heat of danger,
frying-pan-to-fire danger, tightrope-no-net danger,
thin lines connecting cliffs over synaptic canyons
too far to cross, between gains
lost, ends too soon
Writober
Go Dog Go Café also has a Halloween-themed Prompt Challenge looking for Halloween inspired original pieces of writing / and or art. Submissions are open until October 25th.
This Week’s Story
Logline: An arrogant gossip hears noises coming from his shower. Exploring the drain isn’t enough, after cutting a whole through the floor, he finds that his problems run much deeper.
This morning I started the draft and it already surprised me. I’ll keep writing to about 1,000 words today and then let it simmer again until tomorrow. Here’s a little excerpt from my protagonist’s childhood trauma flashback:
I’m not sure what I did to convince it to stop playing dead, but when it did it was all claws and teeth. Its feet pierced my neck and shoulders trying to hold purchase while its teeth and front claws went for my head and face. I dropped the wood and flailed, but couldn’t scream for fear that parts of it would get in my mouth. So no one came to my aide.
I fell hard to the concrete on top of the wood I dropped, bruising my ribs, and played dead myself. It didn’t take long for it to lose interest and scurry into the shadows. I crawled up the steps and cried for my mom. She covered my cuts in stinging alcohol. I filled the house with screams, outmatching the wind until it died, and she took me to the hospital.
Maria L. Berg 2021
Experience Writing 