Writing From The Inside Out 2021 Week 48 Prompts
Based on my poem, Dear Body
Read the poem
Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you
Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…
Use the selection of prompts below the poem
Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…
Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes
Dear Body
Who knows me better
in the intimate corners of myself?
Clenching air, breaking against
the inevitability of surrender.
Haven’t I been the stedfast soldier,
island-isolated, and fighting a war
that ended long ago?
I never got that memo.
I never needed shrapnel
to bind my muscles; or a land mine
to leave behind body parts.
It was all an inside job.
You lived out my story,
every nuance of it,
bound in skin, bone,
blood, and muscle.
You catered to my every whim, loving me
to the brink of every joy and sadness;
bringing alive every bright wish and
every tiny curse in the embodiment of me.
And you held it all together.
Even after all these years you still
cradle me, rock me in your arms.
That’s a lot of love to learn to give back.
What if we didn’t hold anything
against each other? The first lesson
is so utterly simple it is easily overlooked:
“You take care of what takes care of you.”
© Nick LeForce
Please join Writing From The Inside Out by attending the read-around sessions on Friday afternoons. It’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional. If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:
Next Read Around is Dec 3, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST
My Thoughts
Ask me about my relationship to my body and I would give that classic answer: it’s complicated. On the one hand, it is a miraculaous dwelling house with an astounding freedom of movement and an array of sensory apparatus that brings the world to life, for which I am truly grateful. On the other hand, it is a den of confusing desires, unruly discomforts, and sometimes torturous pains, against which I have viciously cursed. I was born with a dented sternum, a condition known as pectum excavatum. According to my mother, I was in the hospital more than I was home for my first two years due to illnesses that they could not identify. Eventually, I was diagnosed with polio. Fortunately, it was a mild case but it did leave me with scoliosis and a weakened left leg.
Add shyness and sensitivity to the mix and the result was a level of shame from teasing about my sunken chest and being the last picked, and reluctantly taken, team member for sports on the playground. I still remember a chorus of voices saying: “Do we have to?” Perhaps that also made me an easy target for bullies as well. But I refused to fight back, despite the punching and kicking, and this, of course, only added to my indignity.
Pain has been a relatively constant compainion in my life. I learned various coping stratigies: ignore it, avoid it, push through it, and eventually give in to it. It has been a long journey to recognize how much I add salt to the wound by cursing the vehicle of my presence. “Dear Body” is one of several poems I’ve written to right the relationship with my physicality. Even now that I take the care and feeding of the body more seriously, I often fail in my duty or I find the effort results in a new pain, not of the positive kind, and I am back in the battle. The first lesson is so utterly simple and so difficult to apply: “You take care of what takes care of you.”
NOTE: Dear Body is included in my soon-to-be-released book of poetry, Everything Is Shouting, Wake Up.
Prompt Menu
Write a letter to your body, starting with the salutation, Dear Body,…
How would you charactierize your relationship with your body in general? Friend? Foe? Or? Or write about the many facets of the relationship, which may change depending on circumstances.
Journalor write a poem about a time when you pushed yourself on, even though all the messages from your body, or from life, indicated it was time to stop. Describe the situation, the clues you ignored, what happened, and what you learned from it.
How do you cope with pain? Or, more generally, how well do you listen to signals from your body?
Journal or write a poem about the ways in which your body lives out your “story.” How does it cater to your every whim? How might it love you to the brink of every joy and sadness or bring alive your every wish and curse.
Journal or write a poem from the perspective of your body and its perception of you. For instance you could write a letter from your body starting with the salutation, Dear Occupant,…
How does your body hold it all the riffraff of your life together?
As usual, write about anything else from the poem or life that inspires you