Sample for April 17th |
Prompt for: April 17, 2016 (Ren) Subject or Theme: Love Stinks! No turning this around ~ I want the downside of love ~ any type, not just romantic is required. Word(s) to Include: avalanche, mug, hill (or any derivatives of these words) Forbidden Word(s): break, crumble, good-bye, leave (or left), over (or any derivatives, compound or hyphenations of these words) Additional Parameters: Free verse ONLY; 20 lines minimum Remember, do not use forbidden words ANYWHERE, including title or the brief description. Love Stinks Stinking love that avalanches down, wiping out reason til I am tumbling head over heels flattened, lying there as a startled skunk sulks away. No flash of tail in warning: ambushed in both arrival and departure. Sulfuric bellow as molten lava burns the heart of me. Mugging for the camera in a haze of euphoria - that grand and glorious of loves - that kind I just know can't, won't, will not last because life is not a fairy tale. I know this has an expiration date going in: go in anyway. Common sense flies out to left field. In endorphin-enhanced haze I danced in the face of naysayers, blithely waltzing around reality. Heart plainly on sleeves, swirling out, touching all around who shake their heads, roll eyes, inch away: They too have been burned. The candle is so bright: like a moth, I cannot resist the flame. Time evaporated, ran out, spilled to puddle on the ground, run into the sewer. No tomorrows guaranteed; none were granted. The rules, you know...Aching emptiness for the illusion, yet still, years hence, real, yet not real, love lingers. I don't forget a single moment of what was, what could never be remembering castled tower princess and her glorious knight. I flew back across the pond, back to brittle reality. He returned to preset diameters. Perhaps if timing had been different, but no. I won't tarnish the illusion. Lived my fairy tale dream until it was time to awaken. But I awoke with the empty knowing of what there could be: just not then, not with him, not with us...just not. Searched for gleaming towers; few castles in America. No knights, just empty nights filled with longing for some unwritten chapter, but the magic quill had run out of ink, the pages torn ragged, leaving me in tatters. A death can be mourned: no tombstones litter cemeteries of the living ended. No glorious hills and heights, just the stench of swamp gas. |