This month’s writing prompt was celebration. Here we showcase our favourite responses.
Celebration prompt: Raise a glass for another year spent. Cheer for the memories made and the tough times we got through. Bubbles fizz, another bottle of champagne. Find someone to kiss at midnight. Turn up the music. Who would have thought another year would come and go so quickly? Reflect on this year and all you have achieved.
a guide to celebrating
today he told me that he wanted me
oh how much i’ve longed for this,
but how does one celebrate such a
monument-us event that they’ve been
longing for, for the longest time?
i sat at in my car and screamed the
loudest scream i’ve ever screamed,
as if that is a celebration – but it is-
letting out your suppressed feelings
could be the best feeling experienced
but then you ask – what is next for me?
you go on the longest shopping spree
that you spend your entire pay check on,
shoes, sweaters, anything you set your
eyes upon – even items with no significance
but last – i celebrate with my person.
you go out to dinner, to bond with the
person that you oh so ever longed for,
to sit and talk, to get to know him and his
true identity that is shown only around you
by Ethan Auclair (@ethangauclair Twitter, @ethanauclair Instagram)
bottled up
come, tell me of how i was
nauseous and
bubbles pressed down
on my eyelids
and the words stuck
in my throat-
wooden like cork,
tell me of how i
was at the brim of
splitting into shards
and how it was simple, letting life
out of the glass, uncapping to let sparkles gush
flares of glitter and
stars that fly
through the narrow neck
tell me you’d do it again.
new year’s eve
as night froze up and
melted onto the roof
the lighter’s flame was a bud
on the lip of your sparkler.
fireworks fluttered in rings
fizzing gently under
your laughter- a quiet
sort of celebration.
pearl white like
petals clumsily bumping
to grasp one another-
daisy chains on thick, dark air.
metal stems pressed
pink warmth into our palms.
a sudden love.
poems by Divya Venkatsridhar (@divya Instagram)
Last December
We collided last December.
You were in a green cardigan.
Those smiley collyrium eyes
greet me, we even shook our hands.
It was the beginning of a joyful
celebration for me.
I met a heather.
She is perfect in everything.
But she doesn’t know that she is a heather.
She has always been good to me.
She makes me feel nice.
But it was me who annoyed her for a while.
I hope she will forgive me.
I heard she is going to change her number.
I hope she will share her new number with me.
I might wish her on her birthdays.
We collide again this December.
You were in a sky-blue cardigan.
Those sparky collyrium eyes
Said goodbye to me, we even shook our hands.
It was the end of a memorable
celebration for me.
by Inner Monologue (@inner__monologue__ Instagram)
Birthday cake
Next time you’re gathered in a birthday song, watch what happens when the moment comes along for someone to “make a wish”
They bow their head over the ritual flames
Whilst loved ones continue to chant their name
And notice how no matter who’s moment it is
A toddler, pensioner,
a working man, celebrity
We all act accordingly as though there’s sudden possibilities
As if that sweet smell of wax kindling
Melting icing sugar, fondant and sprinklings
A crescendo of childhood memories mingling
In our minds
Unlocks some innocence for a moment in time and we
wish
We actually wish
Eyes closed
so hard
For something impossible
Our whole being believing that for once it could be probable
We make a secret statement of what we long for inside and then we blow it away, along with our pride
There’s just something about a birthday cake
That makes us commit to the whimsical
For things to change
Or get better
Or whatever it is we need life to do
“Don’t tell anyone what you wished for”
It actually might come true
by Amy Hawkins (@amylhawkins_ Instagram)
Delirium
Cork cannon fire- a victorious salute to the day in gold Vesuvius rain. Forget time and watch stiff collared clock hands march from the wall. There was never a better moment to be drenched in snow globe shimmer as I climb inside a copa to swim, and you dive into the buffet with impressive butterfly stroke- champion. Chocolate coin medals first place at this table of delights, cheese knife poised to slice 8pm into digestible pieces as we arrive in port. First footers embark with intrepid laughter to applaud unclaimed territory, bringing possibilities and beloved traditions long since wrapped in tender memory- bells and bows and us curled round scissor blades to unfurl against the sofa with soft drone of royal speeches… and snores… surrendering to warmth and wine and whispers. Shhh. Look at us in our perfect ripped crowns, the rulers of this cosy chaos we groan for the perfect collapse in our floral cushioned foxhole. We shall serve each other and fight to the end for the last sprout.
Always, Gladly, Fireworks
The glitterati arrived
Aunt Dot popping sequins
Slowly unravelling with the night.
And the cousins
On best behaviour
Leaving evidence of
The Great Chocolate Heist
Around the house
Fingerprints on bannisters
Grins on mirrors.
Grandad brought his garden spouts
They’d had a good frost on ‘em
Like his father
Forged in the allotments of Verdun,
Little green hand-grenades
Souvenirs of the past
As we consume
Our history together.
Grandma’s hit the sherry.
The twins want to know
If she’ll flambé the tablecloth
Again
This year
Put out by rolling
In laughter
Two minutes of solid giggles between
Minecraft blocks
A Fort of Roses surrounding us all.
And me, lesser-blanketed snail,
Knees on chin,
Becurled with novel
Sipping coffee,
Dad said it was coffee
But it smelt like Baileys
As I’ve had a single
Party popper of a year,
But at home
Always, gladly,
Fireworks.
poems by Zoe Davies (@MeanerHarker Twitter)
Introspect the Eve
A flute brimming with bubbles
Full of hope, yet afraid to pop
Big dreams banked on a Boeing
Old versions of you disappearing
Peer into the crystal kaleidoscope
For a fortune that won’t fizzle out
Buoyant wishes made on candles and eyelashes
Repeated year after year to no avail
Daydreams in clouds, now before your very eyes
This golden gaze of warm adoration
Decade-long honeymoon haze of affection
Even the daily mundane can’t burst the bubble
New dreams floating on a helium high
Swiftly filling the blank pages of a new calling
Small blows can’t dull the glow from within
Revive this fated passion; lift up your chin
Grateful for support from a new cheer squad
Surreal success at last, proof of your inner sparkle
Fragments of me scattered across wide oceans
We are pint-sized beings with such big feelings
Tumbling through this vast imperfect universe
Searching for elusive answers to calm the overflowing bubbles
Each fading sunset a reminder of what has gone
Each luminous dawn reflects what is yet to come
Here’s to another big year
Cin-cin, let’s forgive the sins
‘Tis the season for feeling jolly
Wonderful time for all, ’tis folly
Farewell to those fair-weather
Cherish the present, before we perish
by Nitika Balaram (@musings.by.nitika Instagram)
An Unlikely, and Unwilling, Celebration
“…perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves”
Keeping Quiet — Pablo Neruda in Extravagaria (1974)
There was once a celebration, and I sat rooted to the earth in the manner of a fig tree that encases secrets of a war torn land within its rubbery stems and bearing the markers of age in sunburnt hollows marring the leaves.
Tired, alone, utterly defeated.
The comparison is uncanny, and so was the fact that my solitude brought me here, to the midst of a bursting celebration, instead of someplace I could wilt in agony over my unending despair. Solitude, I had come to realise, was in itself a wondrous and excruciatingly vexing creature born of the manifestation of rudimentary, elemental failures as an otherwise proper human being. Faults in my chemistry that rendered the company of others unbearable, which they rightly took an invitation to leave me to my devices and search for something — someone — else that would not burden them with the grievances I would.
I, however, in that dimly lit space found myself rid of the luxury to ruminate over the nature of my solitude when through the densely packed tables echoed a whistle.
A company of eight, perhaps ten, gathered around a table and sang to a man as he blew out neon candles attached to a nauseously decorated cake. The candles read eight-and-three, and with shaking fingers he exchanged them so they would say thirty-eight. His companions laughed, and a woman at the table clutched the air on the seat next to her, reaching for phantom hands where the space was occupied by her bag and scarf.
They laughed, and then they sang again, and the woman sang alongside them even when the chorus ended. Three empty seats loomed large in their periphery, but when the noise filled everything and seeped through the wood, they contorted into a tightly packed area for placing birthday presents.
Then suddenly, the toddler being wrestled into a highchair beside my table broke out crying, her eyes welling with tears and the shrill sound pounding against my ears, gathering my attention.
The mother embraced the father, pointing at a phone screen that lit up her face and made stars appear in her eyes. They embraced in joy.
A new job, a house, a small win in this miserable world. I counted the possibilities as the child ceased her cries and looked at them in their profound joy with wonder, her thumb in her mouth.
A waitress spilled tea over the edge of my table and it soaked the menu book and edges of my novel — now I could better remember this read, another meditation on solitude and grief created by an author who felt as deeply lost as I do.
The man at the table across the room laboured over his computer in stillness, a cigarette ring lighting his tense features and setting them in further agony. He looked, typed, and looked again before holding his head in his hands and letting out a laugh of frustration.
Not all wins, then.
And in this ruckus of an evening that threatened my melancholy existence with something I steered clear of at every given chance — excitement — I found myself being dragged.
To the table that managed to exist in loving joy and devour the despair crowding them. The child who was yet to discover the truth of the world and ever-enamoured by joy. The man who felt deeply enough to ignore the world as it moved around him.
I was still and silent, and there was once a celebration.
by A. Hasach
Happy New Year’s Eve, we can’t wait to see what 2023 brings!
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