April is our birthday month – Swim Press turned three years old! Therefore, our April writing prompt was Birthday. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Birthday prompt: With age comes wisdom, smile lines, experience, new lovers, candles and parties. Celebrate the years that have passed and all there is to come. Gather everyone you love into a room and fill the ceiling with balloons. This day is for you. Here’s to another year; another orbit around the sun.
Birthday Reds
Not sad or blue-
This birthday doesn’t have the
bitter tang of grief like so many
Before.
Or the sparkling yellows of childhood.
When
Life felt limitless.
This year feels red,
like a flickering flame.
Hot and incessant
urging the roiling waves within me.
The world follows
After
as the cake fork, glittering and ornate,
clatters on the cracked plate.
by Heather Hutchinson
Estranged Birthdays
we lost touch some years back
when your birthdays were filled with wishes
I think you knew all along they would not come true
but you blew hard on the candles and I clapped for you
it’s that time of year again, a notification told me
I double-checked the date and had no recollection
when did I forget your birthday?
when was the last time I celebrated you?
it must have been when you wished for me to leave you be
by Crystal James (@bycrystaljames Insta)
A wishful thinking
How have you been, goddess?
Aligning the stars and sea.
Purple sky.
Purr of your orange cat.
Your favourite mastered-yellow dress.
Black clouds over your rooftop.
I never went to your house.
Remember me as a good person.
Time is on its way.
He will heal you from every sorrow.
Decorated flowers.
Another star.
Your voice notes, I kept it safe.
My bad I was not good enough.
Our stars will never collide again.
Universe gifted me separation.
My journey is filled with uncertainty.
In another life, l’ll be your favourite.
This time the fault was in my star.
Another life l’ll be your favourite.
by Inner Monologue (@inner__monologue__ Insta)
My 5th Birthday
Today is my 5th birthday,
after the one I thought would be my last.
After I put an end to the countdown
and chose to surprise myself by living past 21.
After redefining a reminder of death
as another invitation to embrace life.
After ignoring what I’m supposed to be
and honoring what I was, am, and will be.
After allowing myself for another slice of birthday cake.
After declaring myself as the best gift I ever get.
After believing every candle added is another wish to make.
So today I’ll wish.
I wish to persist dancing on the stage of the living,
I wish to revel in every breath I take,
I wish to cling to the darks and shines in life,
I wish to keep feeding the flames of my dreams,
And I wish to add another wish next year.
by Clarissa Febiola (@clarissafebiola Insta)
Here’s to Turning Thirty
Everyone born in nineteen ninety-four
will complete thirty laps around the sun this year.
Post-birthday bliss, ready to soar into a new orbit
and begin their thirty-first celestial circuit.
The precipice of dawn awaits; aging is not
an existential fear of a paltry number of years.
Once she was nine, a nervous wreck in a new world.
She battled bullies and beasts in every corner,
but slowly bloomed into a social butterfly who
brought other bright souls together. She learnt to
embrace the two sides of her two worlds like a
colourful chameleon who combined cultures.
Now she’s almost thirty and thriving,
living in her fourth world and still trying.
Once she was fifteen and flailing with fear.
She was a numb vacuum, locked in a voiceless
vault. She sought refuge at lakeside playgrounds,
swinging to the melancholy melody of the squeaky
chains and the metallic taste in her mouth was the only
tenuous tether that stopped her from floating away.
Now she’s almost thirty and thriving,
thankful for each treasured day.
Once she was twenty and totally in love.
They were a young star-crossed couple
dreaming of an impossible future; fleetingly
united under the dancing drizzle of the London
skyline. They snuck around in secret, passionate
promises and delightful doses of oxytocin.
Now she’s almost thirty and thriving,
loving the same man (the only man) who keeps her safe.
Once she was twenty-one and tirelessly toiling;
a trainee lawyer haunted by the witch’s toxic vitriol,
jolted each day by her technicolour taunts etched
across each page like a tight slap across her face.
In a battle between cowardice and courage, she chose
to protect herself and her career from the corrupt catalyst.
Now she’s almost thirty and thriving,
exploring her passion for life and writing.
Once she was twenty-five and barely surviving
in the spiralling solitude of pandemic anxiety,
spinning down the desolate drain of uncertainty.
She worried about her withering veins, laugh lines
and ticking clock. Lost in the split-screen sadness
of long-distance madness, waiting for his embrace.
Now she’s almost thirty and thriving,
healing in wedded bliss and blessed with each new day.
Once she was twenty-nine, no longer crushed by the
cruel consequences of the curse of her kindness.
The wind whispered wistfully: “You’re an empath.
It’s your gift, not a curse.” She realised we live in
a cruel world of crazed complicit capitalists
who are blind to the sacred power of community.
Now she’s almost thirty and thriving,
grateful for each day and the warmth in her soul.
In two months, she’ll be thirty and thriving,
basking in the glow of this divine timing.
by Nitika Balaram (@nitika.balaram Insta)
Notice
I notice the crinkle on the side of my left eye,
Slight and faint but true,
Folding my skin into a separation of youth and age.
Last year it wasn't there.
Last year I was smooth, my mind soft and gentle,
The world around me bright and clean.
Now I am wrinkled. Dapples appear.
The leaves are falling and I wonder what marks will show next time.
I rub my eye and turn away from the mirror.
by Lucy O’Neill (@turningthepage08 Insta & TikTok)
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