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Reflective writing prompt
Write about a resurrection

Reflective writing prompt:
Write about something you will always remember

Emily Jungmin Yoon

Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today

I read a Korean poem
with the line “Today you are the youngest
you will ever be.” Today I am the oldest
I have been. Today we drink
buckwheat tea. Today I have heat
in my apartment. Today I think
about the word chada in Korean.
It means cold. It means to be filled with.
It means to kick. To wear. Today we’re worn.
Today you wear the cold. Your chilled skin.
My heart kicks on my skin. Someone said
winter has broken his windows. The heat inside
and the cold outside sent lightning across glass.
Today my heart wears you like curtains. Today.
it fills with you. The window in my room
is full of leaves ready to fall. Chada, you say. It’s tea.
We drink. It is cold outside.

Reflective writing prompt:
Today I am…..

*Sudden fiction – 750 words or less.

Give It Up – Franz Kafka

It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and deserted, I was walking to the station. As I compared the tower clock with my watch I realized that it was already much later than I had thought, I had to hurry; the shock of this discovery made me unsure of the way, I was still something of a stranger in this town; luckily, a policeman was nearby, I ran up to him and breathlessly asked him the way.

He smiled and said: “Do you expect to know the way from me?”

“Yes,” I said, “since I cannot find it myself.”

“Give it up! Give it up,” he said, and turned away with a sudden jerk, like people who want to be alone with their laughter.

Reflective writing prompt:
In 25 words or less, write about giving it up.

Reflective writing prompt

• Title this piece
• Write something related to your title

“Sisyphus”

Reflective writing prompt:
Write about something that weighs heavily on you.

Someone once said we were put on this earth to witness and testify

BY QUAN BARRY

Nowhere    in   the     Halakha’s     five   thousand   years   of   rules

does   it     specifically    state    Thou     shall     not     [                      ]

but     sometimes    tradition    carries    more     weight    than    law

and   so   for    much   of   the    past    year   we    have   not    talked

about     what    will    happen    on     Thursday,    how   the    cervix

will     start     its     slow    yawn,     the     pelvic      floor     straining

as         the           head        crowns,      the      fontanelles     allowing

the       bony        panes       of       the      skull     to      pass    through

until,     over    the   next    24   months,    the   five   cranial   plates

gradually      ossify,     the      head      forming    its     own    helmet

as     structures     harden    over   the    soft    meats   of  the  brain,

nor     do   we    talk   about    the   colostrum  sunny  as egg   yolks

now   collecting  in   your   breasts,   the    thing’s   first   nutrients

already    ready    and    waiting,    the     event    just    days   away

and   still  we  do  not  talk  about it, the mass growing inside you

tucked    up    safe     in   the     leeward   side    under    the   heart

because   sometimes   our   god   is   a  jealous god,   the evil   eye

lidless    and    all-seeing.  Instead  we  will wait  until  it is  done,

until  the  creature  has been  cleaned and wrapped in soft cloth,

the    bloody     cord   that    binds    you    severed.    And   maybe

you       will      name      it      Dolores,      which       means     grief,

or perhaps you will call it Mara, the Hebrew name for bitterness

because       this      is      how     we      protect     what     we    love,

by   hiding   what  it   truly  means  to   us,  the little  bag  of  gold

we    keep   buried   in  the  yard,   the  thing  we will do anything

to      keep      safe,      even    going     so      far    as    to     pretend

it    doesn’t    exist,   that   there’s   nothing  massing in  the  dark

despite  the steady  light  emanating  from  your  face, a radiance

so bright sometimes I can’t look at you, the joy so  overpowering

you     want    to     shout   it     from   the    highest    mountaintop

straight into God’s ear.

Reflective writing prompt:
Shout about an overpowering joy
or
Protecting what we love

From: Coney Island of the Mind

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always
being so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs of having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician

Reflective writing prompt
The world is a beautiful place, if….

The Pond

August of another summer, and once again
I am drinking the sun
and the lilies again are spread across the water.
I know now what they want is to touch each other.
I have not been here for many years
during which time I kept living my life.
Like the heron, who can only croak, who wishes he
could sing,
I wish I could sing.
A little thanks from every throat would be appropriate.
This is how it has been, and this is how it is:
All my life I have been able to feel happiness,
except whatever was not happiness,
which I also remember.
Each of us wears a shadow.
But just now it is summer again
and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,
then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,
close, close to one another,
Soon now, I’ll turn and start for home.
And who knows, maybe I’ll be singing.

Reflective Writing Prompt

Write about something you wish for.