Creative Prompt, 10.19.22
Creative Prompt, 10.19.22
Into the unknown of your very own home.
Hello from the void, where the red leaves swirl in the cool primordial breeze —
Before we begin, a question:
Cool. Either way, have a look at the responses to ‘A trip to the video store’. Among several beautiful meditations on film, I shared my own free-write on movies and porn and puberty, and let me tell ya, it’s weird!
As always, the below prompt is entirely open to your interpretation — you can follow it as closely or as loosely as you want, using your creative medium of choice. Read more about How to Respond to a Creative Prompt here, plus some Tips for Lowering the Stakes here.
Scroll down for the prompt…
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I suggest waiting until you’re ready to create — the less time to overthink it, the better…
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It’s just below here, time to head into Airplane Mode…
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Share your response by leaving a comment, or just let me know it sparked something in you by hitting the ‘heart’ button at the bottom of the email.
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Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop me a line.
Until next time,
Jasper
There’s a kitchen drawer that is never opened because it cannot ever be opened. On the purely physical level, it can be opened, I’m sure, but it does not open easily. A sticky substance has sealed it shut, and while I am certain that I have the strength to pry it open, this slight impediment has prevented me from mindlessly opening it while searching for the lime squeezer or the olive pitter or some other second tier kitchen instrument. I pull at the handle and I hear the unsanitary sound of a sticky something or other and I remind myself, Oh, the drawer we do not open. And I move on and find the carrot peeler elsewhere.
There is one thing that I know about this drawer, and it’s that the smell of garlic is so profound that I can feel it in my fingers when they so much as brush against it. Perhaps there’s an old garlic press in there or even an ancient clove or two. It cannot be ruled out that I allow this drawer to remain in its current state because it keeps the mosquitos and vampires and other garlic-averse creatures from entering my home.
As I write this, it becomes clear to me that the drawer holds a deeper secret, too: for all of the years of therapy I’ve been through, there are some drawers that I still will not open. I am reminded that I do know what’s in that drawer, not in terms of the material objects themselves, but of the trauma and horror and pain that may come spilling out. You see, over many years of internet purchases and kitchen experience I have replaced the need for whatever is in that drawer, I have learned to cook, and to live, without the drawer’s contents.
But the drawer is there, and I do not open it, and despite the bloodsucking monsters that it may or may not keep away, the monsters do not die. They lurk outside and wait for my guard to go down, and when the time is right, they’ll feast on me. When that moment comes, I’ll have no choice but to fling the drawer open, to hold out the garlic press like a wooden cross, and to scream to the gods and fight and pray and order the evil spirits away.
Self-Contained
I once met a man who built a bureau within
Filled each drawer with memories of grace and of sin
Labeled every knob pull with a dangling tag
Explaining the contents of each drawer that he had
A figurative title written clearly in big bold black ink
Spending so much time as he’d collect, label and link
Think hard about how each drawer could be neatly arranged
And how all its random contents could be tightly contained
His bureau evolved in size as his life evolved too
Each other drawer closing as each drawer came anew
Some filled with the joys and wonders of love
Of bliss and of hope and of blue skies above
Others filled to the brim with hard memories made
Of hurt and of fears and of fog and of shade
But regardless of what each drawer held, of grace or of sin
He was sure to straighten out its contents before closing them in
For an organized drawer can be easily reopened
To revisit the moments its contents are betokened