It only seemed right to post the burning prompt responses on bonfire night. Here we showcase our favourite responses.
Burning prompt: Candle wax drips onto the table while the log fire spits and crackles. Smoke billows and whips around our necks. The corners of love letters singe as they’re thrown into the orange flame, the corners curling and crumbling. Don’t burn the bread! Marshmallows melt. Pendle witches burn at the stake.
Augmentation
Profanity streams from her sanctified lips,
and hellfire eats the kitchen table:
this is where you love me.
This is how we’ve paid our dues.
Dust that remembers winds around my legs,
and in I sink to gluttonous churning varnish:
this is where the dirt gets kicked
and your chest lays empty,
beating despite an aorta, despite the open wound.
Floorboards creak in conversation
that lies outside our grasp:
doorknobs gleam like greasy holidays,
cracked skin rinds poke at us to check the time:
this is where it started.
This is where it must stop.
In a hallway,
down a bear-rat’s hole,
behind a door,
we are quiet.
You are angry.
Wood in the fire shrieks until the heavens open
and out comes your heart.
by Mathew O’Rourke (@matthewjorourke Instagram, @mattheworourke_ Twitter)
We Were Dripping Wax
My friend and I, we sit cavenered in the kitchen,
Not making melted morsels of chocolate, or scones with flour, dusting our fingertips.
Not making
something pleasing
For our mothers.
She suspends a lighter, midsummer, as the oven cleans itself
At high temperatures.
The flame won’t hurt if you only flicker it,
She’d said to me in a congenial whisper. She made it bounce between the spaces of
Her palms. I thought of how she was on the swim team: caps, and long legs, and laps. How she was
going to risk it all, to feel dripping wax, and to play a game
With me.
She leaned forward with the candle’s wick, asking me to do it, too, to secure our twilight of a
friendship: all crossed ankles, liking the same boys, weathered fabric bracelets we made
For one another, from similar types
Of string.
I moved forward, cinder and flame,
Only because I couldn’t bear the ending
Of a friendship. Trusting myself to be the type of person
To follow through on things.
I lit the match;
I place it in the candle, the wax dripping.
And, I lolled the substance around my hands: green, and loathing, and
Almost taunting.. She looked at me, a jack-o-lantern
Suspended. Technically, we are made out of smoke. We, too, would be devoured by flame: just like
the candles. We are the noumenon,
The ones that say a smother cannot burn for just a single second,
That the fire is safe, only
For us.
by Leslie Cairns (@starbucksgirly Twitter)
The Blaze That Bore Me
Mama always told me I was born into a burning house. She handed me kindling, poured gas, and struck matches, but she never showed me how to douse a fire. I only vaguely remember those earliest flames, the ones whose scorch marks never quite washed off the walls. There are days I still feel the heat of the blaze, the red and orange fingers lapping and whipping at my skin until I burn as if I didn’t survive those nights. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized; even though I was born among embers and ash, that didn’t mean the entire world was on fire. So, I closed the door on the blaze that bore me, but I doused my path away in the only thing that runs through veins created from the roots of a charred family tree. I can’t be surprised that some flames caught hold and followed.
by Ren Elizabeth (@renelisabeth Twitter)
The family of ducks
I hear the gurgling sound of the creek. The sweat trickles down my forehead. My throat is parched with thirst as the glaring sun pierces through my neck. My heart is pounding furiously. I stop by the creek railing to catch my breath and take a break from my run. It is then I see them at first. The family of ducks-a mother followed by her three ducklings, quacking merrily as they swim on the smooth cascade of greenish blue water. A splendid sight of green heads, yellow beaks, and golden-brown bodies. They get out of the water, walk near the cattails with their orange webbed feet, and search for food. The three ducklings wander off, and the mother duck calls out to them.
I remember the time my brothers and I would sail tiny paper boats in the duck pond at our grandparents’ farmhouse. We’d watch the ducks come out of the water. They were golden brown, with orange webbed feet, like the ones at the creek. I was enthralled by their ability to stick together as a family. The way my brothers and I did. There was a tub of grains which they’d eat from. Once I held the grains in my tiny fists. To my delight, they came and pecked my hands unabashedly. I wasn’t sure what made them trust me instantly. Perhaps it was the food or an eager eight-year-old girl waiting to befriend them. My brothers and I would feed the ducks. This became our routine every summer vacation. Until the farmhouse was destroyed by the forest fire. The flames consumed our webbed feet family, and our summer vacations became a dull affair in the city. There wasn’t a day when we wouldn’t think of the ducks.
I now watch the family of ducks swim again. I start running along with them until they take a different route. This little run routine to glimpse this family of ducks became my daily affair and a respite for my loneliness. Once I catch the mother duck, look at me. We stare at one another for a while, and then she calls out to her young ones. My head is swirling with a million thoughts. Did I frighten them? Did I appear intrusive?
There is a strange smell in the air the following morning. The sky is hazy. I run along the creek, which is conspicuous by their absence. For the next few days, I am at home feeling restless and fidgety. I watch the news of fires up north and the lousy air quality. I speak to my parents, who enquire about my safety. I spend sleepless nights thinking about my webbed family. Nightmares of that summer forest fires haunt me. Images of grey ash and black rubble play in my mind repeatedly. What if I never see the ducks again? What if they don’t survive? The thought makes me shudder and perspire until a pool rests on my chest.
Two weeks later, the sky is clear, and the air isn’t smoky. I step out again for my run. The water is murky and brown. No sign of them. I decide to run further along the creek. Perhaps they are at a different spot. I run faster than before. Sweat pours down my face, and my lungs are on fire. This part of the creek is less murky. I glance at my watch and turn back, feeling heavyhearted. The sun is beating down my neck, and my quads are burning. I stop by the railing, close my eyes, and open them again. I see blurry images of green necks, yellow beaks, and golden-brown bodies. When I blink twice and pinch myself, the silhouettes become more apparent. The familiar quacks, the playful ducklings, and the mother duck bring a smile to my face. For the first time that night, I sleep soundly.
by Swetha Amit (@swethaamit Instagram)
Flash Fire
For so long
too long
your disdain, derision, disapproval
kept me small.
lukewarm.
and even then
you didn’t like it,
didn’t like me.
I was too soft
too gentle
too airy
all dreams and no action
directionless and unambitious
you looked at me and desperately
wanted me to have fire or passion or substance
or simply
you wanted to see
how hard you could apply pressure
before I hardened
wanted to see
how much heat I could withstand
before I transformed
or cracked.
But even now
even as I feel
this astringent liquid burn
in the depths of myself
like I have been drinking whisky
on an empty stomach
and my tears flow hot and defiant and angry
and this new gnawing, searing, blistering
part of me
that I neither recognise or like or trust
even now
as all this bubbles and rises within me
and I taste smoke in my throat as I find my voice
even as I raze every part of who you thought I was
meltdown that image to solder and start again
burn away the very layers of the identity
you have assigned to me
even now
I can’t get it right
even as this new me
brews and bubbles and ferments
with you
it will never be enough.
by Lucy Clarke (@loobylooandhercanoe Instagram)
Always burning.
Pleated cotton wool sky of burnt sienna,
otherworldly canvas caps this monochrome sphere,
here beneath pine-topped trees.
Maybe I could learn to surf these heat-streaked undulations,
no hesitation, hell-bent, intent like Icarus, feathered boy reaching.
We all need wings to cleave the cosmos, curate a cornucopia of calm amidst chaos
Cosmic flares ignite with perceived wrongs,
A burning fury, a tumultuous song of fiery loathing.
Icarus moth, wings scorched, dropped to earth,
Singed of feather,
Never tethered,
Always burning
by Emma Conally-Barklem (@emmaliveyoga Instagram)
Salvation
My one-sided desire once troubled you.
You hold its hand,
Take it to your crematory
throw it in the orange flames.
My burning desire was wrong about you.
It never knew what was good for him.
You give it the salvation that it needs.
My jealous desire is grey ash now.
Scatter them in a safe place.
You always knew what was good for him.
You give it the salvation that it needs.
by Inner Monologue (@Inner__monolgue__ Instagram)
Smoke Signals
I swear it was an accident. The house
is on fire, but you have to believe
I didn’t mean it. It started in the kitchen,
a ridiculous fight about paprika
on the chicken, or maybe it was parsley.
I don’t remember anymore, but now
it’s spread. Wildfire across the dining table,
the bedroom, spilled out on the lawn – a
conflagration alerting the neighbours to get out
while they still can. I never wanted
it to go this far, or maybe I did.
My head is too clouded by smoke to think
clearly anymore. I thought you would finally
bend, and you didn’t anticipate I would break,
but there’s no going back now.
I’m sorry, can we still salvage this?
I’m sorry, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
I’m sorry, where do we go from here?
I’m so- no, I’m not.
I may have struck the match, but you
poured the gasoline on the floorboards. Built
the foundation upon which my resentment
sits. Picked at my insecurities until they
scabbed over and flaked off, only to be
left raw and bleeding when the cycle
began anew. I thought my tears would quench
the flames, or at least dilute your poison, but
it just rose to the top. This was never my intention,
but as I stand in the smouldering ruins of our life
together, I can’t help but admire the destruction.
swim press 