Today we continue to collide nouns with verbs. This time, you will choose from a list of provided verbs, which you can pair with any noun of your choosing to form your writing prompt. From here, spend ten minutes or so exploring this prompt through sensory-based description.
Verbs:
Have fun!
Kisses flush
I forced myself to keep my eyes open, denying my instinctual longing. Your head tilted right, I let mine fall to the left. Sweat pools in my philtrum, indifference belies your small trek forward. One of my hands grips the scratchy quilt my aunt made me for graduation, the other rests shakily on your unconcerned knee. Your perfume is a delicious floral chloroform, separating me from myself. My neck is tense, my hastened heartbeat calls me back to my body. You check your watch just before our lips briefly meet. My stomach turns in excitement, blood rushes to warm my cheeks. You stand up, an insincere smile, another kiss flushed and wasted, another notch on your headboard. I stay where I am, choked up and breath stolen, watching you leave. The outside air rushes through the door and lets me know you’re not coming back.
Marriage Operates
Laying motionless on the bed, the stillness in the air prepares the psychological procedure. Two bodies morphing into one, violent like a car crash, as delicate as rose. The marriage completely cuts you open, every fibre of being, untwining the thick rope you have used to scale impossible walls, and strengthening them. calloused hands may rest, raw and bloody from years of fending for oneself. Hearts removed, being sewn to the hand of the other, at the mercy of a new master.
I like this, a kiss gone awry. I like the feeling of a stolen breath after she just gets up and leaves. And much more compacted than afew what time limit did you do on this one?
This is really amazing. The laying motionless in bed like under anesthesia really gets you going. The ongoing references to various medical procedures is really on point. The juxtaposition of violence and delicacy. The untwining to rebuild stronger is a really neat play. And the ending of love being the new master of this novel creature created from the marriage. I really love it. The only critique here is you have strong visuals and internal feelings, but many of the other senses are not evoked. That in no way diminishes the strength of the passage though. In fact, it may strengthen it, forcing us deeper into certain senses and avoiding the others.
Thank you! I tried to be more concise. I did a 60 second timer to come up with raw images and senses. Then I did 90 seconds to create something from the raw ideas and write it down. So all in all, I spend about 2.5 minutes on it. I definitely need to practice this more. My usual sense is to go with my gut and not think about it or organize it until I put it into a song or story, just basically stream of conscious. So this is that middle ground.
Agreed! Yeah theres afew things i couldve added like the taste and smell of anesthesia or something of the likes
Yeah nice! Got so all that from under 5 minutes if you keep practicing that youll be able to dive deep instantly
Graffiti Indict
Concrete fissures rise out of damp soil, shrouded by whistling trees. Leftover, abandoned structures serve as a canvas, an industrial backdrop to the city. From here, the barrage of car honks and catcalls are dampened by the quasi wild landscape, scarred and marred by the dilapidated, overgrown structures. The scent of stale urine and sweat mixes with fresh weeds. On a glorious, half fallen sidewall of a building, a face rises like smoke. The streaks of fresh spray paint still glisten on the contours of his stubborn chin, worn down into a menacing grin. Eyes ablaze, the figure stares down at the city from his perch upon the hill, his silhouette ablaze with bursts of orange and red as a mirror of the cityscape is depicted crumbling around him. The graffiti indicts the man with fire in his eyes, and a lighter in his hand.
I like the surgical metaphor you’re using throughout and the line “violent like a car crash, as delicate as rose.” I think you leaned into the violent part, it could be cool if you did more juxtaposing with the delicate as well. Just my thoughts. Nice job!
Very true! I didnt even notice that, i couldve used thick rope and soft silk being woven together or something of the like.
I like yours, reading it i felt lik i was instantly transported to a urban landscape. With the face rising like smoke on a crumbling sidewall, reminds me of my time roaming the graffiti ridden walls around Austin texas
I love this. It is such a great picture of a place that humans built, then abandoned. And now nature is taking it back, but with the artifacts still in place. Vivid imagery and strong sensory language! The stale urine mixed with the smell of nature is really superb, and brings back the whole cyclical theme.
Graduate Paddles
As the graduate paddles out of college, the river of the real world widens, the sound of innocent playing along the banks fades to a distant echo in the increasingly isolated vessel. Frantic strokes try to meander a meaningful course, punished by biting cold splashes that urge her to conform to society’s trodden thalweg. The craft is stable when in harmony with the lapping rhythms of convention, why risk drowning in the chilling depths of individuality? The waves grow steadily larger as the bow crashes through their relentless attack. But all rafts are eventually welcomed by the same nonchalant ocean of inevitability.
Heartbreaking stuff! There is no emotion more painful than the unrequited love which you are touching upon, and I think you have made it very real using the senses. I would be interested in exploring this further.
“Violent as a car crash, as delicate as a rose” 
I am obsessed with these sorts of antithetical couplets. I think they deserve a whole thread because they are just so impactful in songwriting especially.
I really like the metaphor you have found here, there is something eerily romantic about it. It reminds me of a Tim Minchin song (since you are from Victoria) called ‘Grew on Me’.
There are such powerful sensory words in here! It’s made me realise that my one is not nearly sensory-based enough. You’ve painted a really visceral scene, well done!
I still see sensory things in here!
and these lines
“chilling depths of individuality; nonchalant ocean of inevitability; increasingly isolated vessel”
are brutally beautiful!
The nautical ties throughout are superb. The tension between tradition and individualism is a cool internal sense that you drive here. I like that. That feeling of being a victim of fate, unfulfilled desire, that is really great. I do think you hit on some really good sensory words here, especially considering your noun and verb. You set up a challenge and met it.
Piano Operates
The spotted chestnut bench let out a long creak as I sat down. The sun peeked through thinned calico curtains, and the air was thick with must and time. My eyes traced the deeply grooved patterns in the floorboards, and lonely blue loveseats past their prime.
In front of me sat a very sad, worn piano, with ivories of dingy grey matte.
My finger touched the middle c…it was smooth and cool to the touch, and the pitch sounded lost underwater. I lightly stroked a few more keys, in ways I didn’t remember I could, and my head flushed with warm nostalgia. In the blink of an eye, I heard voices, and laughter, and felt a hundred moments; summer, mixed with snow, and watermelon and tears. I swallowed hard, pushing back against the emotion crawling out my throat. I paused, then played again, this time, allowing the off key, broken music to work it’s way through me, bringing back to life the things I’d forgotten.
That first sentence is a great way of drawing the reader in: it has specific visual images, the sound of the creak (auditory), and the time passing sense (long/as I sat down). The “as I sat down” is interesting because it shows an act in progress. Lonely blue loveseats is another really neat image, because it is somewhat of a juxtaposition, one would think loveseats being used by folks who want to be close, and now it is lonely. That is powerful. I don’t think you need to tell us that the piano is “very sad”, I think it shows through the imagery. Really cool tactile and auditory tension in the line describing the middle C sound. I really love the line about playing some keys “in ways I didn’t remember I could”… That is crazy real, the feeling of habits or instinct taking over. It provides a little instability but also hope. The nostalgiac memories allow us to interact with the piece. Another really well done writing.