Detail: Hans Memling (ca. 1430-1494), "Christ Blessing," 1481
This was another writing prompt from the Young Adults Writing Group (updated from Teen Writers Workshop as we have both teens and early twenties) that I hosted tonight. One of the prompts I pitched was to describe hands and I gave them 7 words to incorporate: Insidious, Petulant, Rebarbative, Denouement, Efflorescence, Bucolic, and Dalliance. We wrote for 25 minutes. Here's what I came up with:
Red Handed
They were small and so, so thin
Just bone, damaged tissue and skin
Such raw rebarbative combatant things
Used to flick, pick, pull, flip-off
And self-assault
Yellowing at the nails with breakage
From that violent inhale habit
Her hands were often petulant
In traffic
And always in her dalliance with Thomas,
Dick, John, Beau, or Shawn
At their bucolic rendezvous chalet
Her fingers found themselves molded
With insidious coding
Meant at once to fluster
And heat up her efflorescent
Lust investment
Like a secret salesman
Selling stock
But once the mountain man
Was conquered, climbed and shot
All love and hurt acquiesced
With no more to long for or seek out
A tidal wave of empty thought
Lampooned her headspace
Lead-ing down her usually tick-ish hands
And in those eclipses of the heart
On sands of unsatisfying contentment
She found her hands grabbing hard on pink, pink throats
With grips so strong and uncompromising
Such refusal to let go
That Death came himself to
Deal the final blow
And when at last she was stopped
Some years later
Mid-lust-struggle
Fighting to bring back her hunger
Wanting to throw away the sated feeling in her belly
That made her full and dull and wrong
The detectives asked her why she’d done it
And she knew
The denouement would never bring them satisfaction
Lucky Bastards, she thought then,
To always have such unattainable answers
To live for
Red Handed
They were small and so, so thin
Just bone, damaged tissue and skin
Such raw rebarbative combatant things
Used to flick, pick, pull, flip-off
And self-assault
Yellowing at the nails with breakage
From that violent inhale habit
Her hands were often petulant
In traffic
And always in her dalliance with Thomas,
Dick, John, Beau, or Shawn
At their bucolic rendezvous chalet
Her fingers found themselves molded
With insidious coding
Meant at once to fluster
And heat up her efflorescent
Lust investment
Like a secret salesman
Selling stock
But once the mountain man
Was conquered, climbed and shot
All love and hurt acquiesced
With no more to long for or seek out
A tidal wave of empty thought
Lampooned her headspace
Lead-ing down her usually tick-ish hands
And in those eclipses of the heart
On sands of unsatisfying contentment
She found her hands grabbing hard on pink, pink throats
With grips so strong and uncompromising
Such refusal to let go
That Death came himself to
Deal the final blow
And when at last she was stopped
Some years later
Mid-lust-struggle
Fighting to bring back her hunger
Wanting to throw away the sated feeling in her belly
That made her full and dull and wrong
The detectives asked her why she’d done it
And she knew
The denouement would never bring them satisfaction
Lucky Bastards, she thought then,
To always have such unattainable answers
To live for
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