This month’s writing prompt was Patience. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Patience prompt: Buds sprouting from soil, waiting for rain. A seat pulled out for a guest you’ve anticipated for a while. The temperature changing. It can be tedious and longsome, time dragging, the days peeling away, but there’s something coming. Just anther moment, hold on, it’s almost here.
Mărțișor
The calendar reads March 1st, 2025.
It’s a brisk, chilly day. Last month’s snow has melted at last, giving way to early blades of green strewn across patches of the straw-like earth.
In our front yard, delicate ghiocei—snowdrop flowers—have begun to bloom. Their white bell-shaped petals droop shyly to the ground, as if covertly acknowledging their own petiteness. They are the first flowers of spring, almost hidden, unless you’re looking for them.
And I always look.
Today is Mărțișor, which in English translates to “Little March.” It’s a Romanian holiday and annual tradition that celebrates springtime’s arrival. The weather grows warmer to welcome the lively reawakening of the world. Bunnies surface from their burrows after long hibernations, and shades of green, pink, purple, and yellow find their way back to the shrubbery.
Across the entire country, friends and family exchange tiny red and white tassels called mărțișoare. Their cheeks are tinged red from the earthy sweet coldness as they adorn the pastoral neighborhood of Joița so colorfully, tying the strings around wrists and even stringing them on budding tree branches like blessings. They symbolize good luck, health, and renewal.
In the bustling city streets of București, the vendors have stands full of holiday-themed trinkets and hand-woven tassels. Their baskets are full of charms shaped like clovers, butterflies, horseshoes, and ladybugs. It may be urban there, but the air is still damp with the scents of early spring as children play and laugh on the sidewalk. A kind grandmother sits on a bench nearby, watching them.
At least, that’s what I imagine. Despite my Romanian descent, I’ve never actually experienced the holiday in person.
Here in the U.S., there are no market stalls or mărțișoare tied to trees. There is no holiday dedicated just to the arrival of spring.
But I have my own red and white tassel, as a keepsake, in my nightstand.
My mother and I always like to admire the ghiocei every time they pop up from the ground. We know that the seasons are finally shifting when that happens. I feel it every year in the thawing earth, in the early flowers, and in the gusty air.
by Stephanie Gabriella Wilson (@lemonzy77 Insta)
Patience
I wish someone would ask me
if I’m doing alright
something about the budding leaves
and the blur of urban sprawl
I drown out the sound of contentment
with episode after episode
of bad decisions and stilted dialogue
stored on a small screen,
for optimal dissociation
but Girls is too relatable
and the traffic on I-95
is turning a four-hour journey
into a stomach-wrenching
mind-dizzying, eye-throbbing
sinkhole of time
the man next to me
inquires after flight prices
over the phone
a practice almost as ancient
as the velour seat
pressing against my aching ass
my mouth tastes like apple
hi-chews
the air smells like weed and
exhaust
we all stare out the window
a smashed front bumper and
a run away trailer
it could have been much worse
we think
my left foot unplugs
from the rest of my body
my phone battery
slowly
ticks down from full
sleep
the ghost that haunts
but never inhabits
how can doing nothing
be so exhausting?
a pretty green bridge
we all turn our heads
to admire it
by Carly Thomspon (@carlythompson12)
IN THE WAITING
I kneel in the asparagus patch,
shears in hand,
cutting back the brittle ghosts
of last year’s green—
each stem a memory,
each snip, a quiet prayer.
The earth does not flinch.
It takes the gesture
without question—
soft, unhurried
beneath my knees.
Nothing breaks the surface yet,
but I ready the soil anyway—
my hands learning
the slow language of return.
This, too, is how we live:
clearing what no longer blooms,
trusting the root
that waits in silence
to rise.
by Sam Aureli (@samaurelipoet Insta, @SamthePoet0731 X)
I Want to Lose my Patience
My hands shake when my mother tells me, "You can leave the house. You're capable now." My left brain hurts while working on my laptop, yet I have to tell people I'm feeling great when they ask how I'm doing. I close my eyes and keep my -2.1 power spectacles on the table, as they are getting tired of guarding my eyes from blue light. They say I should have patience, but I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to run into the wild—I want to lose my patience.
by Inner Monologue (@inner__monologue__)
Perennial
There is a resignation in knowing that I would pause years,
a quiet and soft resilience as I watch the seasons evolve,
my feelings never altering in form. Yet, they grow, became
robust along the line, blossoming and retreating with
each distinct sunset and shared moonrise.
I look up and ponder what senseless fortitude would let
me linger here alone, without my north star and it isn’t stoic
and it is not brave. I am not virtuous in any other way,
And yet, for her I am.
It’s as natural as the salt that lines the shores, it is as pure
as snow melting upon skin, as strong as the most robust oak.
The tenderness that I possess but ache for, the feeling
I dream of but can’t always hold to my chest. I’ve heard what
people say, that I’m too in my head but I am just composed.
Just enough and yet, I wait.
I breathe life into a morning and the next and I know one
day soon the sufferance will have all been worth it. As leaves
fall I know I won’t, because she’ll catch me. Before I stopped
and tasted roses so sweet I was forever changed.
And yet I hold this poise, tensed ever so slightly that once
the time comes I will forget the simplicity of waiting and
indulge forevermore in my eternal summer with her.
by Lauren Eve (@laureneve_books Insta)
swim press 