This month’s writing prompt was Shiver. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Shiver prompt: Down your spine and through your body, did you shiver? Hairs on end and the bumps of pimpled skin are tell-tale signs. What were you so afraid of? Has it passed or is it still lurking between the trees? The night holds many mysteries, the moon a half closed eye always watching.
He Shivers
He was his mother’s moon.
Now his mother tells him, "Don’t even come to my funeral."
They haven’t talked for three months.
They don’t eat meals together,
Though they live under the same roof.
But he wants to give her the best life she deserves.
He wants to take all the burdens from her shoulders.
Who’s going to tell her his wish?
She might never know it.
He shivers.
He was sane before.
Now he acts like someone else.
He sleeps all day.
He skips his meals.
He shivers.
He always wished for her well-being.
Now her boyfriend writes, “Don’t try to meet her because she
never wants that.”
But he wants to see her.
He wants to be there on her wedding day.
He wants to give her earrings, kohl, and platinum jewellery.
Who’s going to tell her his wish?
She might never know it.
He shivers.
Everything was like spring cherry blossoms.
Now he has swallowed more than fifty grams of zinc phosphide.
But he survives.
Who’s going to tell them how he is?
They will never know this.
He shivers.
by Inner Monologue (@inner__monologue__ Insta)
A little winter
A bewitching sight, reminiscent of a warm day,
Strolling together while he fidgets his fingers.
It stops then. The walk. The fidgeting.
She caresses his hand like a feather deserves to be.
They shiver as the rough wind passes them.
Eyes can be reassuring if it’s hers, he settles in them.
They walk again, but this time footsteps are silent.
Yet the hearts race, as love began in a little winter.
Love began in a little winter.
by Bushra Ali (@calm_pace Insta)
the night unbidden
It comes like a hand over your mouth,
soft as it is forgiving, the way
darkness presses its weight into the fields,
the fences, the tops of the trees whose
names are no longer spoken.
Beneath glass skin, the weight of
the woods knowing something about
your body you don’t even know.
This cold does not break—it settles,
moves through the hollow of a keyhole,
slides under the door like
an uninvited guest trembling by it’s
other names, a heron breaking the lake.
If the stars refuse to blink, they are
too far to be afraid, you think, perhaps,
you should leave the porchlight on.
In the distance, the lake folds into each
ripple, swallowed before it can form.
The air sharp, and you think of a shadow,
you once mistook for a man.
Tonight, even the trees seem startled,
their spines bent backward,
their branches too thin to hold, a match struck
in the wind, held until the fingers blister.
This is how we learn to move:
by stillness first, the world
an instrument of absence,
a quiet carried without knowing,
then a slow descent into madness,
the soft and violent shivering of ice,
you pretend not to hear under your feet,
until it is then you are plunging.
If you hold your hands open long enough,
the frost becomes a prayer in your palm,
each breath a hymn of amnesty,
each step a confession towards the dark,
threading between your ribs, like a promise
or a warning after leaving your mouth,
but the stars do not blink and
the cold has already learned your name.
by Hayden Szuber (@h4ydenszub3r Insta)
Striking of the Thunder
Anytime the thunder strikes across the land, I shiver
As I watch the light pass across the land,
from the window of my bedroom room,
The light of the thunder storms reminds me of the florescent,
Inside my room.
Mama says I shouldn’t watch the striking of the thunder,
Because of its striking effect, because it makes me shiver
But I like to watch the thunder, even when I shiver at it’s thundering
Mama says the thunder is a god and I do not understand why some people worship it,
I just like to seat in my room and watch the striking of the thunder
Whenever its about to rain, or when the rain is about to stop falling drops of water.
by Oyelola Ogunrinde
Endurance
It was bitterly cold that January morning as about a hundred of us lined up. We were waiting for the race to start. It was so cold our skins were stinging, standing there shivering, arms flapping, hands cupped to our mouths blowing for all we were worth, jumping up and down, toes painful, snow crunching underfoot. As we waited, more snow was falling around us.
And we waited.
We all watched the man in many layers and hats , gloves and scarf who had the starter gun. He seemed to take an age inspecting it, examining it. Why was it that the race starters always seemed to be such fussy men? Maybe they were ignored everywhere else and this was their chance to shine, to be important. So he was going to milk his moment of glory for all it was worth.
And we waited.
It just so happened that the morning of the county run would coincide with a blizzard. We hoped that the whole thing would be called off. That there would be a last minute reprieve. Surely no one would willingly send children to run out in this?
It seemed so senseless.
But the snow and cold had erased all sense that day. The organisers in their snug warm coats and warm feet decided to go ahead. It would be character building.
There would be no turning back.
We would be running into the blizzard on ground heavily laden with snow in the freezing cold.
The starter’s gun went with a crack, off we all sprinted for the first corner. Our fleet of foot a bit more fleet to try and keep warm. To run slowly in this awful chilling cold would invite even more misery and pain.
A few spectators cheered us on as we passed by the first row of trees. And then we had left them behind as we entered a silent, ghostly landscape and all was white apart from a few dark trees.
Onwards and onwards we ran like startled stags trying to outrun an unseen enemy. Feet pounding heavy, panting breaths , lungs and throats burning, hands freezing, faces flushed, noses numb, mouths tingling and even the sweat was cold.
And yet on this horrible day with every yard being a shivering struggle I found myself in the lead! That was the first time that had ever happened!
There was just one problem. I didn’t know the course. I was rubbish at reading maps. Usually I just followed the leaders. Now I was the leader!
But then other concerns loomed larger, I could hear the heavy panting of the chasing pack close by. The other runners were gaining on me.
I saw the turning tree and went around it quickly, the rest followed a second or two later. I looked back and saw there was a pack of a dozen or so lads on my tail, with more following.
Then in the distance I could see the finishing line. But now my legs and arms seemed to have stopped working so well, they were like iron, and I was out of puff. I watched helplessly as three runners overtook me and finished ahead of me.
Victory would not be my kismet.
I did manage to finish fourth, which was my best ever position.
I caught back my breath as even in the freezing cold and snowy conditions I felt a certain pride. Maybe coming in fourth took the edge off the coldness. And I was told that the top five would get a trophy. I had never had one of those before in cross country.
But then the warm coated organisers came across to me and my teacher. Their faces looked all frosty and stern. They said I had taken a wrong turn and gone the wrong way. They said I had been disqualified for leading everybody else astray.
Once again my total lack of knowledge about the course had cost me dear. Still I learnt a valuable life lesson. Never go racing into the lead when you have no clue what’s ahead of you, best stick with the pack and let someone else make a mess of it.
by Simon Collinson
Shiver
There is a face that gazes back upon him from the river, one unlike his own, and he shivers when their eyes catch one another. His reflection tells a story of passing seasons and times long ago. And in winter, as the ice sheets freeze upon the surface of the river’s bank, Alfred too is frozen in the moment. It is late November, peering into December, and wind rolls off of the petrified ice waves, tingling the hair upon his aged face. The chill is not quite cold, as one would think, but rather it burns. It stabs his exposed skin like a pack of hot knives, and that moment of pain, encapsulated by winter’s chill, his mind drifts. His reflection stares back up at him, from the icy glaze upon the river, his eyes sorrowful. The cold air that tickles the space behind his ears repeats a promise, an oath made long ago, one he has not kept.
“I will wait for you, and seek you in Winter, if you will still have me.” He whispered, almost ten months ago, to the man who had his heart. Oh, how things have changed, he has broken his promise. His reflection calls him a liar, and its eyes glare in judgement. You broke your word, to the Earl, and he will come looking for you, and what then? Alfred shivers at the thought, and hugs his cloak close to him. He gazes once more upon his reflection, and it shivers with him, and weeps for him all the same.
by AustinFriars (@AustinFriars_ X)
swim press 