Writing Prompt
Writings
Writings
VISUAL PROMPT
Submitted by Daniel Kween
Write a story based on the theme of "Light"
Writings
Nothing can truly capture the beauty of nature like the human eye can But for those unappreciative of its glory Their glaring ignorance will be their folly “How beautiful” Nay, beautiful silence Where to speak Would be auditory violence A camera can’t do justice to perceive The natural light one’s eyes receive And yet I must try Or else wonder why My vision is gone with the blink of an eye
Dark.
Cold.
Alone.
My eyes drift closed. I love the night— it’s the only time I can feel free: a rare feeling once you’ve stumbled out of childhood. No one can see me during the nighttime, not even myself.
Sometimes I even sneak out, through the window, and just walk down the side of the road. It’s an entirely different world, an earth turned upside down. Music through my headphones, sun-starved breeze on my neck. I think the moon is the better of my friends.
But it lasts for so little time, thanks to sleep. Sleep that I already feel myself succumbing to; my vision dissolving into fizzling grain, and my heartbeat slowing to a resting drum. I’m slipping away, again. Always.
I speak a quiet wish in my heart.
_I wish this world could last forever. _
_I wish that I could be a creature of the night. _
Something slips back into focus. Morning?
It’s all so bright— way too bright, and yet it almost doesn’t bother me at all. I feel numb, still half asleep, but even now I can tell something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.
My body is in all the wrong places— my limbs feel broken up, my insides rearranged, my senses contorted, strangled. Its eerily silent, and yet there’s a booming loudness in my head— one that’s unfamiliar and impossible to place. I can sense things that I do not know, and that I have never known.
I try to move my head, but it’s fixed in place. I begin to see objects, but I can’t tell what they are— only half in color, and fuzzy, jumbled.
Have I died? Trapped in limbo? I hardly think it’s fair for a healthy nineteen year old to die in her sleep.
I find that I can move my arm— but it no longer feels like my arm. It’s cold and disjointed. The nerves are in unfamiliar places, and I can barely coordinate it to my brain. I try again, with my other arm, and find the same issue as before, along with the sneaking suspicion that the amount of arms I possess is wrong as well.
I’m hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion— everything feels wrong, clouded, almost painful. This world is fading almost as quickly as it appeared. I surrender.
I’m awake, again. Everything is still wrong, but now it’s dark, and I feel invigorated with life.
I begin to move my body, and now I’m sure that I have more limbs than I did before, and maybe also— _wings? _
I test this, and manage to get almost a body-length off the ground before tumbling onto my back, disjointed legs fumbling through the air. My vision becomes clearer as it adjusts to the darkness.
I’m in my room— only, it’s not my room. Not how it was before. Everything is slightly off, and more importantly, looks hundreds of times bigger.
I try to come to terms with the fact that I’m probably either dead, or in a very weird coma.
After somersaulting back onto my feet, I realize that I’m standing on my pillow, with my regular human body nowhere in sight.
I test out my wings again, and after several more failed attempts, manage to fling myself into the wall.
_Ow. _
From some automatic instinct, my feet attatch themselves to the surface. This gives me a better view.
My furniture has been slightly rearranged, and many of my belongings are haphazardly strewn across my floor. When did that happen? I certainly didn’t do that.
I realize with a pang of emotion that after whatever happened to me, my family must be worried sick. But what can I do? All I’ve managed to accomplish in this state is throw myself into a wall. I don’t even know if I’m still alive, or if my soul is simply wandering, scattered.
My eyes land on the mirror that’s sitting on my desk— or at least, what I think is a mirror, with the terrible scope of vision I now possess. If I could manage to get myself over there, I could get a little more information on what might’ve happened.
I ready myself, then leap.
I propel myself through the air for about two seconds, then lose control and careen back into my bedsheets.
This is going to take a while.
After what feels like an eternity of practice, and failing miserably, I gain enough control of myself to make it to the desk, floundering into a crash landing at the foot of the mirror.
I stagger to my feet, and stare into the glass.
Looking back at me are two bulbous black eyes, framed by a thin layer of fur and two tendriling feathers; antennae. Slowly, I turn to the side. Two silky brown wings line my back, fluttering silently.
A moth.
That’s what I was. I didn’t know why, or how, but I had changed entirely. Everything I had experienced fell into place.
But what would I do now? Could I speak? Or write?
I tried this now, straining my small throat. Nothing. I couldn’t make a sound.
I was a ghost.
I steady myself, trying to escape the thundering crash of panic clawing at my mind. This couldn’t be the end, could it? The end of everything I was, everything I could have been?
I had to get out of here. I had to figure something out, anything— I had to find my family, find some answers.
I walk to the edge of my desk, and stare what feels like miles down to the floor. I had never been afraid of heights, but at this moment everything in my being was screaming at me NOT to make that jump.
I jump.
Miraculously, I find my wings catching the empty space much more easily than before, and gain a rhythm in my wingbeats. I was flying— actually flying! It was only when I reached the door that I realized I’d never figured out slowing down or stopping.
_SLAM. _
My vision goes white and my entire body loses sensation, before gradually settling back into place.
Luckily, instincts have saved me from falling once more, and I begin making my way to the bottom of the door, shaking the pain from my aching limbs.
I slip underneath with ease, and am startled to find my parents in the middle of the kitchen, shouting frantically. I can’t hear anything they’re saying— I’m completely deaf. But I can tell they’re upset, and my mother’s eyes are full of tears. My chest tenses with guilt— is it guilt? Can I feel guilt for something I didn’t cause?
After a couple tries I lift myself off the ground, and flutter to the countertop. They ignore me entirely, yelling and motioning with their arms. I feel their voices as vibrations through the ground and air, but I’m unable to recognize the words.
I feel the sharp sting of regret as I watch them— regret for being distant, for never asking how their day went, how they feel. I’ll never get to fix that now. Is this purgatory? Maybe Hell?
The shouting finally stops, and they throw each other into a hug, but it’s tense. They leave the room; my mother’s steps wobble and my father holds her hand tightly. I think about following, but I don’t. They wouldn’t know it’s me.
I stand there, on the countertop, for a long time.
This is never how I imagined death to be.
I had imagined it to be peaceful, all-consuming. A release from all my problems and all my pain. A warm hand on my shoulder, a soft kiss on dried lips. Nothing but darkness, and nothing in my mind. Sometimes I had even longed for it, when life felt too long.
If my eyes were human, they probably would be wet. But they were still.
I leapt, again, into the air. I flew from the counter to the wall, then to the wall across. Back and forth, higher and higher, trying to push the pain from my mind— trying not to feel so painfully alive; not so painfully dead.
In one moment, abrupt, something twists in my mind. My body swerves sideways. My vision blurs. Too bright. Too bright. I kept turning. Turning. _Turning. _
_Lightbulb. _
_Turning. _
I try to take back control but it’s useless. I’m weak, growing number, but I can’t stop.
_Turning. _
_Turning. _
_Turning. _
_Warm. _
_Getting hotter. _
_Bright. _
_Too bright. _
I want to call for help but I can’t. I have only have half a mouth, and I don’t know how to use it. I want to scream. I want my parents to find me, and I want them to care. I know they care.
_Turning. _
_Turning. _
_Turning. _
_Hot. _
_Numb. _
_Blinding. _
I can’t escape. There is no escape. I’m trapped— cycling, turning, dying. I’m dying, aren’t I? I’m going to die, all over again. But this time I’m going to feel it.
_Turning. _
_Turning. _
_Turning. _
_Blistering. _
_Blind. _
I regret it. I regret it all. I regret not wanting to talk to people, I regret not wanting to live. I do want to live. I don’t want to die.
_Burning. _
_Dying. _
But what was I going to do with my life? I never figured that out. What was my passion?
I never fell in love. Now I never will. I never felt that burning desire people feel— when they want to do something, and they know that they’ll do it. I never felt that tether people feel, when their soul touches another, recognizes another. I never had any talents. Any dreams. Any knowing.
But I remember things.
I remember my cat, the one-way conversations we would have on summer nights, out on the balcony. The gifts he gave me. How sad I was when he died.
I remember the friends I used to have, back when I was younger, before I closed myself forever. When we made up names for each other, and we made up futures we could never have.
I remember years I can no longer place, when everything was only a mystery, and my mother’s arms were the only things I fully knew. When I was sung to sleep, and carried over rocky ground. When big strong arms would lift me up from either side, and swing me over cracks in the sidewalk.
I remember seeing. Feeling. Wanting. Knowing.
I don’t want to die.
But everything goes dark.
And then it’s gone.
Something creeps into my mind.
A sound?
No, a song. Bird song.
I blink open my eyes, and I’m back in my room.
It’s full of color. The light from the window beams down on my bleary eyes, but it’s just the right amount of brightness. Everything is right.
“Mom…?” I whimper, just barely over a whisper. My voice is tight, shaking. But there’s nobody else in the room.
I feel my arms crawl beneath me and heave my body up— they’re sore, but alive.
I stretch out my fingers, one by one, then my toes. They’re working.
Heart beating, unsteady, I push myself forwards and onto floor, catching myself with my feet. I can stand. Everything is okay.
I walk through the house, trailing my fingers softly down the walls. I go to my parents room, first, but find them sleeping, arms wrapped around one another. I go back to the kitchen.
Was it all a dream? It must have been, right?
In the center of the kitchen floor lies a little brown moth, cold and dead. I scoop it gently into my palm.
Then I walk to the door, and I lay the poor creature to rest.
[ I just kind of wrote this all at once after being hit with an idea I liked, so I might make a second draft later on. I like it but I do think it could probably use a redo. ]
Burning skin Let me rid myself of sin I’ve wasted centuries away In chambers so empty Xylophone ribs Piano heart Tune I’m playing So irregular
Get the scissors the razor the knife Promise I won’t take my life Just a little blood Pouring silkily off my skin I know I promised But the blood oath wins Peeling away my snakeskin What you saw was a disguise
For like stevie said I’ve been to far out my whole life Not waving but drowning Scars like fallen stars no longer wings You took my world My pain away Now an asteroid I burn eternally
My skin a patchwork Scar quilt where secrets lurk Atone and rid myself Of dirt pray to cleanse On my knees each night Wake up Tarnished as before Now silver lines trace my skin
Where to end Or begin The root of cause buried deep I am not a secret to keep Yet shame sinks in Your looks my penance You broke your promise in return Said you’d never judge me
For like stevie said I’ve been to far out my whole life Not waving but drowning Stars like fallen scars no longer wings You took my world My pain away Now an asteroid I burn eternally
Ritualistic burning Wash away the guilt Last time I do this Last time I do that Stevie was wrong I’m not merely drowning Waving from the pits of hell This is growing
Up or maybe down I’ve never known Lost among the stars The seeds are sown Of fate this is my end Curtains closing take a bow Thought I’d live forever Now buried under ground
What do people think of this as a song? Because I’m not sure and I might suggest it as a new project for a band I’m in, it’s a mixture of ritualistic burning and Icarus, constructive criticism welcome!
Bright like the sun, Dark as the moon.
Light Dark Light Dark
Just tricks on our eyes. so we can’t see the lies…
light dark light dark
the never ending cycle of sunrise and sunset.
Bright like the sun, Dark as the moon.
Opposites alike enemy lovers.
Its all the same in the end.
end… begining?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. -MLK
This quote is really meaningful to me because it shows that even in the darkest times there is light that can guide us out.
This world is a horrible place. The only way we can change this world is by changing us. We need to spread love and kindness but if we can’t change then the world can’t change.
You may think what your going through is hard but others go through worse. You truly never experienced pain until we experienced others pain. Pain is like a knife it can get sharper if you sharpen it but it can be dull if you dull it.
The pain and suffering the world is going through is because of others. If we stop hurting each other then we won’t hurt people.
You never know how low people can be and how words affect them until you push them to their limits.
So next time think about how you can effect someone with one word. Spread love and kindness not hate and violence.
If you saw all my flaws
All my darkness
All the things I hide in the shadows
Would you still look at me like I was the sun.
Would you still crave me and see me to be the light house for your ship in a storm.
That’s the thing about you
They say love is blind but with you
Is it stupidity or simply naivety
You only see the good in me
Or maybe you just take me as I am
Frankly that frightens me
When my ugliness does come out of the shadows
Sneaks it’s way up from the darkness to the surface
Will you stay? Will you still see the same light in me you see right now?
Light. Oh how I do not evny the light. She must stay bright, and be a shining beacon for everyone she meets. She must always maintain her bright personality and stay that way until nobody is around. That’s why I dont mind being the darkness. I prefer staying to the shadows, hiding things that do not need to be seen. I lurk in corners and watch what happens from there. I’m comfortable in my realm. Perhaps she feels this way herself. Maybe she cannot imagine how I stay in my hiding places, how I lurk behind the items she passes. It could be that she thinks I am sad here, and that I wish to be like her. I don’t wish to be her. But I do wish that I could touch her, just once.
You see it shining
And you take it for granted
For it’s light you see
You see it shining
You may not see it again
Beautiful, yes
You see it shining
And you take it for granted
And now it is gone
For now it is night
Darkness has taken over
Now you miss the light
You sit and wonder
For when will it be morning
And the sun is rising
So you sit there now
As the morning approaches
Now it starts again
