Writing Prompt
STORY STARTER
A Thousand Nights in One Day
Write a story or poem with this as the title
Writings
A Thousand Nights In One Day
This day was all. All I ever needed. The culmination of a lifetime. A lifetime of hopes and wishes cast up to the moon. All at once came rushing toward me. Knocking me off of my feet. Just the sight of you, winding me. Reaching out to catch my breath. Exhaled and gone. This day was a thousand nights wound up. Lived and remembered. Loved and lost. Would I change it? Never.
A Thousand Nights in One Day
Don’t think I don’t think, One last bit, How much I can’t think, Without thinking about you.
These last thousand nights, I’ve spent talking to the moon, In hopes that she’ll see you sooner, then I’ll ever get to.
That night we didn’t say much, In fear that we’d say something way too soon.
Ten years have passed, and I’m still feeling blue. Every day feels like a thousand nights. A thousand nights that I haven’t said “I love you”.
A thousand nights in one day
I feel I have lived. An old soul resides within. Like a lone bird, mind cast sail in the winds. Again and again-replaying my old sin. The sin of not loving myself, Not believing in myself. Something that I wish for, Every other child. But Now, Time to cut the play. As I dream a thousand dreams, sad, forlorn. Serpentine.
As i’ve died thousands of times in one day,
My heart- bends,shakes, doesn’t break.
Night after night, the moon I gaze,
When I go to rest,
i’d replay, those thousand nights, in a daze.
A Thousand Nights in One Day
“Breakfast.” The sliver of light was mirage, a hallucination in an obsidian existence. A distant clang of metal remedied the world to raven feathers and coal dust The familiar darkness stretched for hours, filling my lungs, my heart. The manacles were wrapped forever-too-tight and my arms ached from where they were pinned above my head. The cell was dark heartstoppingdark fleshrendingdark and my eyes knew nothing but black. Color was a memory, an echo of shadows that swallowed me whole. I didn’t know how long I had been in this place of nightmares. I used to rage, used to scream and cry and 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. I used to remember something, anything, other than this inky void. Now there was only this cell and this pain in my arms and this emptiness. A hundred nights, a thousand nights of starless never-ending-midnight. Lazy footsteps cut through the panic, and moonlight toobrightmoonlight realnotrealmoonlight filtered in from a small slit in the wall. The guard grinned at my frail, scarred figure, sliding another tray through the gap. “Dinner.”
Longer living
Only 24 hours to live Only 24 hours to die So tell me what will you give? To save your own life?
Nights continue to blur Days become a night My words beginning to slur No longer putting up a fight
Let my day just end Let these night be a thing of the past Because I will no longer pretend That this night is not last
A Thousand Times
The strenuous start of the day accumulates my whole body with dread. My eye lids push their way open giving my eyes a few short moments to accustom to the intense brightness of the day. Even though, my room is much darker than you would expect for a summer’s morning.
I would say that when finally fully awake, I begin to realise what the day marks. But I never sleep deep enough to have any control over my subconscious mind, my thoughts are already consumed. Full.
The thoughts in my head turn to mush. Watered down liquid. I always imagin that if my forehead was a window, you would see them spilling over leaving my brain to drown. Empty.
I turn towards my right and a cold, blank vacancy absorbs my vision. Who knew your heart could not only break once, but continue to shatter a thousand times, every day.
Time stretches for miles, as though the End will never come, untouchable. Yet, as I see the seconds tick by they forever stay stuck. Giving me a thousand nights in one day. But the End was so close once and has take everything away. He plummets his hands into your chest and doesn’t care if he breaks a rib or two. He claws to find your organ of essence and pierces the flesh with a lasting wound that cannot be healed. He clenches onto the pulsing tissue and rips it from its cage. The raw moment agonising every second that is to come and I surrender in compliance.
For my heart shatters a thousand times each day I’m not with him.
A Thousand Nights in One Day
They knew she wouldn’t last till morning. When she’d got the diagnosis last year, she’d chosen a time to die. There was no cure. No hope. Only time.
Her loved ones gave her every experience they could in the months that followed. They travelled and celebrated life, the sadness never too far behind them. But M had made peace with her fate.
This was her last night. During the day, her parents and friends took shifts sitting at her bedside and talking. Squeezing a lifetime of conversations into one day wasn’t easy- emotionally and otherwise. There were moments she’d never see: birthdays, graduation, weddings. They shared old stories and plans for a future she would never see. They fit a thousand nights in one day.
The crowds had departed from her house. In tears of sadness and of laughter (grief can do funny things) and holding gifts M had made for them and final photos they had taken. Only her family remained. Her family and him.
J refused to leave. She’d tried to break up with him, push him away, but it never worked. He called her bluffs and held her through the sickness. He knew his heart would shatter come morning, but he wanted her for as long as he could have her. He wondered if he’d ever find a love like hers again.
He described their life to her. Their silly fights, the dog he rescued, their wedding, the birth of their children. Tears streamed down her face, but she couldn’t speak. Her voice was stolen by the inevitable. They held each other as if their worlds would fall apart when they let go. It was almost sunrise.
Her soul had illuminated the lives of so many. J felt like he’d lived an entire lifetime with M. He’d give anything to save her- and he’d tried. The doctors had to restrain him when they gave the news she wasn’t going to make it. He’d screamed himself so hoarse that he couldn’t speak for a day. He would love her forever.
Her family came in. Mom, dad, brothers. They had gentle smiles, but their eyes were red-rimmed and they could only whisper for fear of breaking down. They took seats around her bed. Final messages of love and wishes that this wasn’t the end of her story were shared. They hugged and smelled one another (M mostly smelled like hospital, even though she was at home now) and etched memories of their daughter, sister, and true love into their minds.
The sun was peaking over the horizon. It painted the farm crimson and gold. It had been ages since she’d had the strength to walk the grounds, but her brothers had carried her out yesterday to see the animals one last time.
M put her head on J’s shoulder. He felt underserving of that privilege. Her family members rested their hands on her. She looked out the window and her mom unplugged the machines.
A thousand nights in one day
I wake up every day hoping it will be better But today something or someone is changing I hope it’s me but it’s you You’ve changed I’ve changed You agree to go back and do it again I just want to be able to live with myself I say yes While thinking no But I’ve got a feel I want to go We have dinner We see a movie We go to a park We wander the city We just talk These are things I’ve wanted These are things We did all in one day It’s a thousand nights we could have spent But are all here today