December’s writing prompt was Dance. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Dance writing prompt: The dance we do around the kitchen as you take the kettle and I a spoonful of sugar. Hand in hand we waltz as the first song plays. Look at the children dancing on stage. There’s a couple dancing in the corner of the room waiting for the clock to strike midnight.
A Drive
The ice cream ordered in January,
At a counter, making me doubt my memory,
Because why would an ice cream stand be open in the winter?
We had been in the car for an hour, he had asked me if I wanted to drive around and look at
houses in rich neighborhoods
I already knew this game from the town where the women dropped their dirty clothes at my
grandmother’s house for her to
Wash, press, and fold.
I had a Kiwanis Club scholarship, only partially covering the tuition of a class where I watched
my professor cry about the fact of her mother dying
And a deformed thought said, this is a cost, me sitting here watching your ordinary humanity, the
wounding truth
After that, a nervousness took root, and I could only outpace it
Dancing on unfinished wood floors, long splinters underfoot, kindling, drowning
The story goes- my great aunt was standing on table, unsteady for sloshing reason, hanging
curtains
And she fell, never the same again
How’s that for hereditary?
Dying for adornment’s sake.
by Emily Johnson
The Last Dance
The first time we met was in a dance hall in a small shebeen,
our home away from home, the only place for folks like you and me,
And in those few minutes of dancing with you, it was the only time I felt free.
But in the eighties our country was still under the rule of the Apartheid regime,
When the police raided the club, our hands slipped out of each other as your friends
helped you the same way mine helped me, all we could do was watch each other flee.
A few years later and the first democracy was set to be implemented,
we all knew who we were voting for and that’s when I saw you dressed in your
traditional Zulu outfit, smiling with a glee only a goddess could exude.
The moment after we both voted, you walked directly towards me,
holding my face, the same face you held on our wedding day.
My queen, today is your birthday and you would have been 87 and every year that was spent, oh every part of it was a blessing,
but what I cherished most was last year when we slow danced in our living room,
Me, a Coloured man from Cape Town and you a Zulu woman from Durban,
dancing as though we were in our twenties in that shebeen,
Chemotherapy couldn’t take away your stride, the peace in your eyes.
Little did I know that your 86th birthday would be the last time that we danced,
None of the above would have happened if I had never decided to take a chance,
And it all took was asking you if you wanted to dance to a few reggae tunes,
For I saw eternity in your glance, a life time together as soon as our palms were grasped.
by Liam Joseph Mick
Adagio
You slip into the music like a secret you keep
slow enough for the moment to seep
into your bones,
into the place where you learned how to wait.
Every step says stay.
Every pause says maybe.
You move like you’re choosing
what not to give away.
The floor knows your weight,
how you lean, how you lie to the clock,
letting seconds slide by.
A shoulder opens
just a trace, just a sign,
like a door left unlocked
but crossed by a line.
Your breath goes first,
soft, low, unafraid,
pulling the air
where your body won’t stray.
Nothing touches.
Nothing breaks.
Desire behaves,
but it quietly shakes.
You turn like a thought you don’t say out loud,
stop right where silence starts drawing a crowd.
Heat gathers slowly
behind knee, down spine,
a sweetness that knows it’s better with time.
The music bends close, tries to match your pace,
learns how restraint can look like grace.
You stay on the edge where wanting feels true,
where holding back is something you do
on purpose,
on fire,
in full control
the softest command
you’ve ever told.
When you finally still,
nothing’s through.
The dance just settles
deeper in you.
by Shaden Ali Mahmoud
I Wanna Be
Your angel, I wanna be your nothing nothing
I wanna be your demon, I wanna be your something something
I don’t wanna torment you
(Unless it’s in a way that you can stand)
A way you like at first
I wanna be your baby girl
I wanna be your big strong man
Kiss me like you want to understand
Kiss me like question and an answer
Dance with me, you don’t have to be a dancer
Let’s be animals together
Not always in heat
But the kind who bite ach other’s ears
Before we go to sleep
The kind who huff and push away
Don’t always share a bed
But we both try to make it in the morning
And when we can’t
We don’t stay mad
by Maia Vivian Hunter (@maiaspublicnotebook Insta)
Just dance
Everything aches.
The soles of my feet from moving
My toes from getting crushed
My knees from bending and knocking
But then the music begins again,
and it’s like a siren song.
Casting its magic over me,
luring me in.
The undulating sea of bodies encompasses me,
welcoming me in.
Friendly faces blur around me
as I rock and sway
The cool air blesses my hand,
as I reach it up into the sky.
A nice reprieve
from the steam and sweat.
It doesn’t matter though,
how crowded or hot
it may be,
just dance.
by Neela Swartz
Circling among your lips, i find velvet
Waltzing in the middle of the room your gaze upon me
What is a girl to do who has fallen into the arms of you
Gentle is the touch of a guided palm against silk
These are the things i would count with sheep, as i drift to sleep
A man with a Sinatra tone and a king cole rhythm
Waltzing in the middle of a room
Forever intertwined with you
The ballad of us two
Forever swaying to the tune of you.
by Jasmyne Jade (@thejasmynejade Insta)
I am careful
to step on all the spikes
tiptoe around all the feathers
keep my head held high
while squishing limbs out of leather
The night is over
The family is gone
I can finally take off these masks
Put new ones on
Keep track of how long they last
Pull my linen ribbon
And I unfurl like a can of crescent rolls
A pile of dough
flopping down to the floor
A one person show
Let me slip into my freudian
so I can dance circles around
anyone who tells me I can’t
have what I want and won’t
have what I can’t
Still, I manoeuvre, careful
keep my head bowed
tiptoe around words
step only in favours
cut myself into thirds
by Madeleine Chan (@madeleinelyc Insta)
Club Rat
Rhythmically,
Swaying to the beat of the waves
and the song
Dancing clumsily like the night
is still young
Like the music will last
as long we want it to
won’t tomorrow come?
Not as long as we
wish it won’t, no.
Can you feel your heart
beat in unison?
Bonding with people
You never met before
And will never ever know.
Well I think I know
What the meaning of life is
now.
by Thomas Acquistapace
Summer into Winter
She twirled in her long summer dress
fabric whipping her knees in light breeze,
silhouetted in the golden hour.
Beautiful, honeyed hues momentarily
but eternally etched in his mind.
A memory, a fantasy, a love lost
or never had. A falsity he'd alter
with retellings and passed time.
'A pretty girl, a riotous soul.
She'd dance for hours, she could've been mine.'
He claimed a piece of her and yet she
never knew his name. Less than a
grain of sand and yet he placed
her so high in his recount of that summer.
A placeholder for a year of his youth,
maybe she'd think it sweet or maybe a shame,
that a man so shy would remember so well
the way her pale limbs twisted as she spun.
How he would impress songs from
the radio upon that day,
how that hue of sunshine would always take him back.
Until the day he no longed needed to live in his past.
A different decade, another dress, a new song but
the same girl. Now a woman, the same undeniable smile.
He approached as if in a dream, reached out a hand,
simply asked, 'would you dance with me?'
They didn't leave the floor all night and recount
their story every winter to grandchildren lit
by the golden warmth of Christmas
songs and ever dancing candlelight.
by Lauren Eve (@laureneve_books Insta)
swim press 