November’s writing prompt was Jealousy. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Jealousy writing prompt: I’m not jealous, I’m… intrigued, disillusioned, ungrateful, greedy, tempted, weak, unsatisfied, easily persuaded, wanting something better, yearning for more, fearful of missing out, desperate for what everyone else has.
State of Jealousy
I am a jealous creature,
born of insecurities long buried.
I see her hair,
her pretty downy, mousy,
thick, thin, luscious locks
and I despair.
Her body - like a pencil
but still the pearl blue dress
she wears hugs her straightness.
Perfection.
My body is that of a rotten pear.
My hips wide, my gut a roll of brioche.
The only things I have are my eyes,
legs and hair - the auburn that glints
like golden waves of sunlight,
beaming, reflecting in eyes
that glimmer with hope. The reflection
is yours, though you are not here.
As is the warmth, like a melting dagger
piercing my organs. It goes for the mind
then stabs the fast
beating
heart that is still mine.
Jealousy is a mistress of the night,
the master of my self-confidence.
She is cruel, but also a true master of
reality
as is the mind imprisoning me in delusion
and frozen moments of past interactions.
They continue to permeate
This forlorn mind of mine.
I find it hilariously painful - the
rush
and pause
of stories just to study her face.
Girlfriend, love interest or cousin?
Naturally what I want cannot be verified.
What is verified once again within the body
you made feel beautiful
is pure conflict, shame and green hatred.
A state I will not escape
until someone manages to topple
you from your throne
or until you depose me from mine.
by Chelsea Bright (@cmr_bright Insta)
after I saw her post
the desperate stitch
of jealousy
itching as it tries to heal
before regrowing again
by Laura Kelsey (@laurakmusic X & @lauraksongs Insta)
Crawls
It crawls out of me like a dead thing in a grave sometimes. A total infatuation. I try to keep it buried, dirt piled 6 feet deep and flowers rotting near the tombstone. But it’s zombie like and resurrects in true apocalypse fashion – when least expected.
Now I get the DART into town and spend 45 minutes thinking of the space between your earlobe and your collarbone. How it tastes. How it feels to hold between my teeth. There is a tugging in my gut, a twisting in my chest. If I don’t see you soon it might kill me.
If we were Pagan I would worship you. Berries at your pedestal, blood in your altar. Slit my neck and I’ll bleed out for you if you ask it.
Is there a way to describe this wanting? Pull me inside of yourself. Unzip your skin and let me in. Break all your ribs so I can slot inside. Why can’t I read your thoughts ? Maybe if I loved you more they’d appear, cartoon style, above your head.
Make me yours in all the ways that matter. I’ll disappear into it. I’ll wear your clothes, your cologne, eat your favourite foods.
Make copies of yourself and I’ll collect. Cloning exists so I can fill a room with your being. Fill my shelves with you and advertise you online. Not to sell, just to show off.
I can’t stand that someone else has loved you like I do. I can’t comprehend that they might have.
I want to tear them limb from limb and spend the night in their arms. Push the hair back from their forehead and ask what it was like for them. Was it gentle? Was it every inch of themselves?
How did it hurt to leave you. How did it hurt to be left.
by Úna Ní Nualláin (@unaninuallin / @unascribbles Insta)
Cynical
I once asked a friend:
“Could you afford to love and be humane
Despite the echoes of dead presidents
Permeating the hedonistic streets in this age?”
I wished to get an answer soon enough,
Because everything aside from the greens
Now struggle to matter?
I’m just learning the ways
To climb a ladder of oil
To survive this dungeon.
I fell a few times and bled internally.
I’m afraid to seek [parasites’] help.
I was once a host to the ones I called friends.
Self-pity once plunged me into their abyss of extortion.
Then I built walls from bricks that scorn threw at me.
No noise could permeate.
Pregnant were my cheeks, of words
That weighed down my soul.
Genders? I don’t know.
by Tukur Ridwan (@Oreal2kur Insta & X)
Dear you
I was jealous of the way he held your hand in every image,
hands that I should be holding,
while he looked into your eyes, eyes that I should be the one gazing into.
I was jealous knowing that he gets to wake up next to you everyday,
kiss you in the morning with your hair all over the place,
seeing you at your worst, at your best,
seeing you last, being the only one seeing you first.
I was jealous of the fact that you will call him boyfriend, baby and babe,
the guy that you trust, I started questioning if I was enough.
A friend recently asked me if I loved to the point that I was willing to let you go,
I did not understand what they meant until I saw you happier than you had ever been
with me, smiling freely, grateful for your future and the person that you get to spend it
with, I was jealous, but being happy for you was always easy to admit.
by Liam Joseph Mick (@liammick08 Insta, @Liammick05 X)
Things we’ve never said aloud
I open Instagram and see you
posting about your dinner. Lentils, simple. Vegetables, simple. Something you learnt on your own.
No mother’s lesson, grandmother’s recipe.
Simple. Is what you said you want from life, once. My mouth doesn’t water.
I press on the little heart anyway. It turns a bright red.
I do like it, don’t get me wrong. Like your more complex meals (like her life actually), your highly
evolved skin-care routines (unlike my thoughts), your effortless breathing when you swim,
one lap, two laps, three laps, don’t you ever tire? Ridiculously brave.
Your seamless makeup (I could just eat it), the abandon with which you sing
on camera (your eyes frighten me), your study of our favourite literature: quick, intelligent but
a performance in confidence only slightly better than mine, a product of your perfect education.
I like it all and I tell you. Often enough. Heart react, reply: gorgeous, you make me swell with pride. And another thing too.
Jealousy, not the bubbling, frothing kind, just a soft push against the surface
My best friend, you learnt it all on your own. And left me behind.
I’m texting you knowing you may not respond. You have better things to do. Why wouldn’t you? You have many, many friends. People flock to you, drawn to your company.
Do I want to be magnetic, want many, many friends, or want to be all your many, many friends?
You are effortlessly beautiful, desirable. You are effortlessly intelligent. It takes me deep effort to be either.
I feel embarrassed about my work. You do things, original, inspiring, staunch. I make ridiculous mistakes and live in fear.
You keep people in your life, sometimes frustratingly so. You are hard to parse. It makes me feel distant, like what I know about you is a lie. The truth will always be too complex for me. I sometimes wonder what all you don’t say to me.
If you don’t like someone, it’s simple, you don’t like them. Case closed. God, how easily you close cases. I go in circles till I have no experience of any situation. A says I am trying to be an anthropologist of my own life. Very bad idea. You know where to keep your anthropology.
I get happy when I have dreams because at least my psychoanalysis this week will be as good as yours. Good means, literary, insightful, surprising. Even in therapy, I’m jealous of you.
When I ask you why you’re friends with me, you make all this jealousy dissipate. Reassure me, make me feel loved, important, without really ever lying. It is the most suspicious thing of all.
by Shraddha N.V. Sharma and Nidhi Kinhal (@slow.sand and @nidhikinhal Insta)
swim press 