This month’s writing prompt was Swim. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Swim prompt: Breaststroke through clear crisp waters. The drag and thrash of your legs against the tide. The swell of a wave before it crashes over you, then emerge into the foamy surf. Swimming through freshwater rivers and heated pools, algae lakes and the salty ocean. Arch your elbows and keep kicking. Let the water take you.
Pisces Rising
7.37 am: I just want to swim, swim, swim all day.
A hot flask of tea fogged the car windows from the view of any nosey dog walkers, braving the wind. The sea was behaving herself that morning, inviting the boats to come and join her in the cool waters off Skye. If the wind was any stronger I would have brought my board. Grey clouds hung heavy, threatening to crush us all with their bloated belly full of rain.
Dissociating at the rolling waves, churning up the sand, spitting out seaweed and discarded waste. Would a rogue wave grab me? Gobble me up? Could I keep my breath if the chill of the Atlantic forced me under? Filling me to the brim with salty brine. Pickling me.
I’ve always been close to the sea. A comfort that others have found strange or perhaps unrelatable. Some say it’s because I have water placements in my birth chart, a Pisces rising and Aquarius moon but if I’m honest I don’t know what any of that means, I just know that the ocean makes me feel free. Alive. Ignited.
8.12 am: Stripping to my underwear, leaving a heap of dry clothes high up on the sand. Running away from the self-conscious intrusive thoughts that tell me to cover up. I ignore them. I don’t care. The sea will never judge me.
Crunching over the splintered razor clams that grazed the soft arches of my feet, hobbling the same way people chew really hot food. It’s clumsy but there’s no neat way of tackling it. White crests from waves applauded my return. I was home.
It was late May, but she had not received the memo, so my skin constricted in protest to the algid waters. Instant hyperthermia. Frost bite a close second. Carving little ripples with my arms to keep my afloat, they danced on the surface of the water like worms.
I swam against the gentle current, kicking as though I were competing in another race with other swimmers. The front crawl was always my preferred method.
Face up. Arms out. I’m reminded just how small we all are. Insignificant. Tiny. Helpless. Nothing more than the driftwood that sways in the vast blue. I’m free. I’m alive.
8.28 am: I just want to swim, swim, swim all day.
by Rhys Evans (@rhys_evanss Twitter)
Tide pool
I’m navigating clear waters with a murky mind.
Salt on my lips, but there isn’t a single good memory with it.
I want a tidal love, the kind that washes over me.
Remember when I shaved my head for the summer,
Died it blonde and went to the sea.
I was trying to get you off of me.
All the summers spent reinventing my personality.
And finally, I’m a brand-new person.
I hate that I needed to change to forget you, to forgive myself.
A renegade against myself.
I needed to collect shells on the beach.
I needed to touch base with the sand.
I’m the coolest when I don’t care,
I’m the best I’ve ever been when I do care.
Guess I’m a kaleidoscopic creature.
I’m a Silver Arowana.
I change with my environment.
Colors you’d never seen.
So welcome to my lonely island.
It changes every night, poisoned by heartbreak,
Fallen fruit-induced comas are a tradition.
The world used to be my oyster.
The marine, my playground.
Now I’m haggard,
Counting the ways the world cuts you open like a fish.
by Valentia Khumalo (@the_human_vegetable Twitter & Instagram)
Bathic
There is a life beyond this
Is it normal to miss the rain as it falls?
To hold your subconscious in your hands
back and forth, forth and back
There has to be something more than that
I want to place it under my tongue
So the flavour encapsulates my mouth
infecting me with its deliciousness
The nutrients seeping in to my very soul
jump starting a fire that has turned to coal
At the cliffs edge my body is suspending
The waves underneath whisper to me softly
they speak the words I so badly want to hear
I let them crawl under my skin,
devouring me from within.
by Nicky Anderson (@allwordsnopaper Instagram)
I can’t swim
I was drowning in the lake.
I can’t swim, but I was saved by a skinny boy.
We both love the ocean.
I have drowned in her eyes.
But she can swim.
I have drowned in her wide ocean eyes.
Nobody was there to pull me up.
Her innocent eyes are irresistible.
Even God would forgive her all sins by seeing those eyes.
We both love poetry.
I write about her.
She writes about him.
We both gave our hearts.
I gave my heart to her.
She gave her heart to him.
by Inner Monologue (@inner__monologue__)
Swim
It was one of those hot days you remember; clammy skin and breathless air. We smoothed our way down the narrow road to the sea, windows open, you in the back on your little booster, legs dangling. Branches of trees on either side reached across to meet and make a leafy tunnel above us. Their shadows quivered in the ground and there were flashes of sudden light in gaps in the hedgerows. Lime-coloured. Golden.
We parked at the base of a broad oak, your hand splayed on the bark as you wound around it, negotiating the roots delicately while we dragged stuff from the boot – picnic bag, folding chairs – the soft smell of the sea in our throats and eyes. I insisted on the sun tent. Said I could manage, as I swung it over my shoulder, struggling to keep my balance. You were too old for a nap.
You squealed at the wide, deep blue, kicked up sand as you sprinted to a spot by the dunes. Heeled off your jelly shoes, your toes sinking in the grains as you twisted yourself free of clothes, right down to the shark-patterned trunks you’d packed, determined.
I thought there might be fear at the water’s edge when you came face-to-face with the bare-faced swell of it, but you threw yourself in whole that day and started swimming. Your sheer delight, your salty splashes, and me, in up to my knees, catching sparks of light crackling on the electric blue surface of the water, like tiny fireworks. Up and down the shallow, you swam, until eventually, I scooped you up, shrieking, held you close to me, wanting the world to hold you as I did. Always.
A world away from me, I still remember the perfect weight of you, dripping seawater onto the hot sand as I lugged you back up the beach. That first fearless dip echoing across the shore now. And I am held.
by Leanne Simmons (@leannesimmonswriting Instagram)
Reggie & Buddy’s Swim (Brooklyn, 1964)
Buddy spent yesterday in another hushed car
a tight lipped man with nothing to share
other than the day’s wage in Buddy’s hand.
Reggie is done with school for the summer.
Three of his older siblings and his single mother
will make sure he finishes high school, just like another
rich kid from the island.
He’ll be the first to graduate high school.
He’ll be the first to go to college.
But today: the boys are kids (just like any other)
Wide toothed grins, they depart Williamsburg:
jump into the East River and give into the Atlantic.
Their thick skins protect their organs, brains, and better judgment
from anything lurking (manmade or ocean) under their back.
Their bellies’ baking under the sun.
In years to come they’ll share this joy
with each and every child and grandchild
they’ll meet and love.
by Lauren Elise Fisher (@AllFishSwim Twitter & Instagram)
july is for
cannonballing down the deep end,
holding until the very last moment
to resurface for a single breath,
and then swimming back down
that is to say-
july is for
taking chances, failing, and trying again
by Angelica Terso (@angelicatersowrites Instagram)
Currents
It begins in darkness.
The only sound we hear is the soft trickle of water, flowing like violet honey. The gentle breeze accompanying the water’s course parts the clouds that veiled a crescent moon.
We can now discern the two river banks; the bareness of the western bank extends to the horizon where, in the dim of night, its boundary is absorbed by the sky. To the east is a densely packed forest, its trees silent sentinels.
The moonlight dances along hundreds of fine, silken threads extending from a willow tree by the river’s edge, to the body of a woman in the water. She floats as if in a trance, tethered to the tree, breathing softly. Her hands are clasped at her chest as the river runs its liquid fingers through her hair.
Her serenity insists that we linger a while to gaze upon her; perhaps in doing so, we may be invited to share in the dreams that occupy her mind. Shadow pass over her face as the clouds begin to move again, with increasing urgency.
Suddenly, a blade of wind slices through the delicate threads and the river carries her away. We follow.
Our pace quickens to match the river’s as we glide overheard, never taking our eyes off her. Though the rolling of the water loudens around her, the expression of bliss resting on her face is unchanged. The farther we progress, the sparser the forest becomes, and the east bank begins to more closely resemble the west.
The river’s mouth gapes wider as if to engulf her, its gargling almost deafening; still it carries her on its surface. But, for the first time, we notice a shift in her, as though something is moving from within. Her eyelids flicker, her lashes tremble, her eyes snap open as the river plunges her over its edge.
by Anushé Samee (@withanaccentaigu Instagram)
Frog days
Swimsuits fit awkwardly on my eight year old body, too tight at the bottom, too loose at the chest, my sun-reddened hair tangling itself up in the straps.
Chlorine burned my ripped cuticles with the same fervour the sun burned my skin and the inflatable pools’ womb struggled to contain a cluster of rowdy children.
I, the youngest, clung to the sides and tried to avoid being sucked into the whirlpool the boys created by running in circles, the water rolling like a tire down a dirt road.
Once, I tried to cartwheel; a feat I couldn’t even accomplish on dry land. Down became up and up became down and my legs flailed wildly ‘til a strong hand jerked me up.
Three summers later I sat on the concrete with the frogs, feet dipping in and out of my aunt’s in-the-ground, my monthly blood kept well away from the water.
By the time I was fifteen my swimsuits had split themselves down the middle, now two pieces instead of one. My brother downed a beer and let the can float til it filled up and went under.
Five summers have passed since then, and this year, the pool hasn’t been set up. Only the whirlpools remain. The whirlpools, and the blood, and the beer.
by Lisa Aguilar (@lisa_a_1003 Instagram)
When I taste the salt
I drink the water
My mother tells me
It’s so dirty
And yet
I’m here with you
Feeling baptized
Sanitized
Sancitifed
Renewed
We come up for air
But the air is the sight
Of each other’s animal eyes
Oh how I long for
The ocean of you
Someone that can go into a room without me
But loves me anyway
God tells me to repent but I don’t really hear
Because I’m busy listening to the water sounds of your mouth
Oh my God I’m loved
Oh my God even if I die alone
I will have had this once
I will have had this once.
by Maia Hunter (@maiaeatspapayas Instagram)
Discomfort
“There is nothing that pleases me more than the sand between my toes.
The feeling that comes with walking out of the ocean, the sand collecting at your ankles. Itching more with each passing second.
The dust causes a sensation that is hard to place but easy to hate.
This is my favorite moment. Right when it becomes unbearable. For now is the time to enter the water again.
I walk towards the waves. The sound of them make it easy to ignore the shards of sand digging into my heels.
The tip of my big toe touches the water first. Sweet relief washes over it, causing all the other nerve endings in my feet to scream out in jealousy. It’s as if their pain is worse now that they know something better is coming.
I cannot wait any longer. I run into the water, the ecstasy washes over my feet before blanketing over the rest of my dry, desolate body.
I allow myself to relish in this moment. The moment right before the water cools your skin, making you one with it.
For in this moment, I am the warmth the ocean is gravitating to. I am the light. The discomfort I felt just mere moments prior is now transformed into bliss.
Once my body cools, the thrill worn off, I exit the water just the same as I came in.
Digging my feet deeper into the sand as I walk, doing my best to become as uncomfortable as possible.
This cycle of constantly causing pain to continue feeling the high that comes with pleasure is one I cannot escape. I instead will wait.
Wait for the sand to dry.
Wait for the itch to come.
Wait until I can sprint to the water again.”
by Summer Parker
Swimmers
I am emerging when she speaks, her words slipping the pool’s surface: You look— when— swim. I turn, ears popping, legs treading water, sun sinking through the glass in the roof and distorting itself across my arms. I’m sorry? You look very beautiful when you swim. White hair slicks her face and clings to her shoulders like kelp on pocked rock, free of cap or scrunchie. Her eyes are light and keen; her lips wear approval. She’s docked against the deep-end wall, fingers gripping the small, tiled ridge, slight frame bobbing. A human buoy. I want to be her instantly. I thank her and her smile deepens the lines at her eyes. I’ve been coming here since I was eighteen. It’s different now, but wonderful, you know? We look out at the swimmers, their heads disappearing and reappearing in breaststroke; arms quick and synchronised in butterfly. Splashes arc into the air and tiny jewels fall. How lucky we are to have this. She unmoors herself, takes that first frog-like stroke and swims out, her head and shoulders becoming a distant landmark— hair a beacon, a lighthouse I’m pulling away from. I follow, diving into the turquoise and reaching for the hazy tiles at the bottom. The bodies above are clouds: soft and pillowy; forever shifting. I push up and out, catching my breath before beginning the stroke. She passes me and for a second we are twinned, our bodies pulling the water, our hearts full of blue.
by Lizzie Alblas (@LizzieAlblas Twitter, @lizzie.alblas Instagram)
trying to escape the kiddie pool
I keep swimming though all of this blood like it’s concrete Chipping away at clots like stones hardened around my heart Beating, now, is like breaststroke with arms swollen from years of treading Kicking against the tides of fate and found The waters taste comfortable, familiar feedings for faces feigned with family I could ingest it all But I need to be drained dry to feel what it’s like to float
by Madeleine Chan (@madeleinechan Twitter, @madeleinelyc Instagram)
Temperature is rising. Now is the right time to take off the business dress code. Ladies, liberate yourself of high heels, satin blouse, and pencil skirt. Gentlemen, take off the choking tie and fancy suit. Throw documents in the air. Teleport to the beach. Give softness and warmth of the sand to your bare feet. Smell the scent of aromatic oils from the Mediterranean greenery around you - olive, sage, rosemary, mint, roses, jasmine, thyme, oregano, and lavender. Just breathe the healing in. Immerse yourself in salty waters. You will find what bliss means. Peel off human skin. Put on the fish tail. Awaken the sleepy mermaid within the small heart-shaped shell placed in the depths of your soul. Dance along with sea foam. Play with bubbles dolphins make as they breathe. Swim home until the ocean heals all your wounds. Sunbathe so the skin turns to an olive-brown shade. Watch the glass objects reflecting sunbeams, decorating empty walls, making them shiny like a disco ball. Relax to soft classical music in your home. Breathe in the form life should always have - joy.
by Martina Rimbaldo (@martinarimbaldo_artpoetry Instagram, @martinarimbaldo Twitter)
swim press 