January’s writing prompt was Frostbite. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Frostbite writing prompt: A numbing of the fingers and a gnashing at the cheeks. A silent landscape, a slow killer. So beautiful and delicate it can cut to the bone.
Ice Queen
Too often she sits at tables, frostbitten.
Hot coffee, cold shoulders,
afraid to speak too boldly of her summit,
protecting her dreams from an eventual plummet.
She knows her mountain is calling,
roaring,
blooming.
The audacity! The delusion!
The wildness within asks if she will risk the summit alone,
or freeze her magic in their comfort zone.
She melts, powerfully,
into the woman she is becoming,
blanketing inspiration like snow.
The coffee goes cold,
she’s really done it.
Her delusion glows as a signpost to the summit.
by Fenella Fox (@thefoxfiles Insta)
what a last love probably feels like
It feels like a star has been born behind my ribs just by looking at her
but no one tells you that stars burn by freezing first.
The room fills with sparkler-light, yes,
but my fingers ache the way they do in winter
when the cold is so sharp it pretends to be nothing.
I swallow hard.
Emotion spreads like ice under skin,
painting my heart onto my sleeve
until I cannot tell warmth from injury.
My heart is a dying star.
Not dramatic enough to supernova.
Too tired for spectacle.
It collapses quietly,
matter folding inward,
heat disappearing,
gravity doing what gravity always does:
holding on while everything else goes numb.
She talks like a pop-song hook,
laughs like May arriving early,
and suddenly the centre of my chest feels alive again,
a new-born galaxy where there was only frost.
Planets form.
Moons take up orbit.
Not a black hole to destroy,
but a cold gravity that keeps things together
because warmth alone never survives.
I do not tell her
that at the mention of her name
my ribs split open,
space dust swirling, stars born and dying in silence,
because some miracles happen below freezing.
Asteroids collide.
Light fractures.
Every thought of her feeds the chemistry,
carbon, breath, pressure…
life growing where circulation once failed.
At night I lie still,
breathing in sugar-dust smittenness,
breathing out sunlight and water and carbon dioxide,
the materials of photosynthesis,
the proof that even frozen tissue remembers heat.
Maybe she is the flower,
light-years away,
growing from a place I thought had gone dead.
The galaxy in my chest glows all night…
not warm,
not safe,
but alive.
And I know biting frozen feeling now:
not the absence of feeling,
but feeling preserved too long,
waiting for the moment
it hurts enough
to return.
by Devika Bahadur (@devikabahadur Insta)
Frozen
Gnawing my fingers, waiting for my hands to move,
My fingernails numb, my legs frozen,
I want to step forward but it feels impossible to stand.
Each step I take, I'm forcing myself to move every tendon and joint,
I have never felt more afraid to use my own body in fear of losing the fear I already feel, fearing an icy reception that could become a blizzard if I lose eye contact and blink, yet I still want to walk towards the destination I seek to reach.
What if I continue walking towards her, move through this pain,
all for her to say no to me, understandably as I would be a stranger asking her out on a date, for it is her choice to choose whom she wants to enter her space because anyone coming closer may pose danger or look creepy,
I don't want her to think I am a creep and look like a cloud blocking her shine,
But if I don't walk up to her and take the chance to talk to her, to see who she is,
to know why I want to get to know someone I have never met before,
I would forever live with knowing that I sat here while her warmth walked away,
standing still, waiting for her to stay.
by Liam Joseph Mick
The One That Takes You
In the dead of night, he came for them.
Goodbye to strangers that he condemned.
Frozen faces with frozen toes,
They were left out in the cold.
Their lips turned blue, they couldn’t cry,
Left for dead right where they lie.
Frostbitten fingers broken in the snow,
A story told by Jack Frost that only he knows.
Be careful when walking in this Winter weather,
And wrap up warm and cosy in a room altogether.
The strangers that froze, were never found,
Hidden under ice and buried underground.
If you can hear footsteps in ice cold climates,
Be wary, but warm and stay very silent.
Jack Frost comes knocking when frozen and frostbit,
And maybe you’ll survive for just a little bit.
by Beth Butler (@eabwriting_ Insta)
The Bitter Morrow
The girl who once danced with the embers
Lies awake, in the bruise of winter
Frozen to the touch
Only to reminisce on the hues of orange
Yielding to the glacial slumber
A wanderer gazing into the flame
Breathing into callused palms
On the morrow, a speck on a faded map
To trudge through evergreen, and blistering frost
Winter arrived, and so did she
Making amends with the sting
Only to persist, until spring.
by Jasmyne Jade (@thejasmynejade Insta)
swim press 