July’s writing prompt was Message in a Bottle. Here we showcase all the responses that were submitted.
Message in a bottle prompt: Unfold the scroll in the glass. What does it say? A note from a time long ago? A note from a long lost lover?
Just a Long-Gone Bottle of Wine
My eyes are tired from crying,
like a permanent graze on my skin,
reminding me what I have lost.
Walking along a long stretch of deserted beach,
a partly submerged clear glass bottle pokes its head out of the sand,
like an invitation.
My hands are suddenly pulling it out,
shaking off its gritty coating,
turning it over to check its pedigree.
It’s no archaeological gem,
just a long-gone bottle of wine,
drained of all its intoxicating possibilities.
Its salty cork forced back into the empty bottle,
sealing the words and memories that flowed during drinking.
My mind races to the story behind this naked bottle:
who partook, why, what happened next?
Its transparency hides so much.
My instincts tell me to become part of its story,
to pour my heavy saudade
onto the scrap of paper found in my pocket.
As the wind rises,
with sand in my eyes,
my shaky hand writes a simple message:
If you find this bottle,
you were meant to:
Pick heart over head
every time—
Do not end up alone
like this scrap of paper in an empty bottle.
The stubborn cork finally gives way,
opening a portal of release
as if it were expecting me.
I roll up my note, slide it into the glass,
as the pounding surf pushes me to replace the seal.
The cold water greets my cold, bare feet.
Now up to my knees in sea foam,
my tears rush to meet the sea.
Enveloped by the welcoming embrace
of the patient waves,
the bottle begins a new journey,
no longer alone.
by Adele Robins (@your_words_worth Insta)
Message in a Bottle
When I left,
I buried
your name
beneath the jasmine
instead of
on a gravestone.
I thought
flowers needed
someone
to remember them.
Years later,
I learnt
they had been
remembering
you for me.
Every spring,
someone pauses there.
They never know why.
I never tell them…
by Kiran Rao (@keyrunrao Insta)
Afterglow
When the blue finally let go,
the message her tender heart carried
revealed in an afterglow;
I almost never met a man
with whom I let my guard down,
where safety wasn’t a mere dream,
who meant more than he said,
truth being our first language.
by Bushra Ali (@calm_pace Insta)
Limited edition
by Mike Everley (@mj_everley Insta)
Camellia
Inside the wooden desk in Grandma’s house,
a stack of dusty envelopes fills half the space.
There’s no stamp on them, and the blue ink has faded to grey.
Not love letters, but words of consolation,
penned by a young man in the 1930s.
We were being chased—the first line.
I never thought I’d hate fireworks this much—the seventh line.
Beautiful cursive flows like magic.
The brown paper holds traces of yesterday.
They must’ve been sun-scented letters, written under dim candlelight.
A water wheel factory hired us—the third line of the second letter.
…from seven to five—the very next line.
A coffee stain marked the left corner.
Perhaps it was spilled over breakfast.
It was New Year’s Eve,
and somehow fireworks didn’t scare me,
like they used to—the last line before the letters from the forties.
One of them was written in the dead of winter.
His cursive seemed to soften.
He wrote it without haste,
as if time no longer mattered.
What shall we call her if it’s a girl?—the fifth line of the last letter.
And the next line mentions a flower,
Grandma’s name.
by Bonniela (@archiveoftheundone Insta)
The Last Letter
I met your mother during a difficult time in our country’s life,
during a time wherein us meeting up was considered a crime,
the only reason why no one stopped us was because they assumed I was black, but I was as colored as can be, being a young laaitie growing up on the Cape Flats.
There was one day when we were almost caught out while I was walking her to a bus, a police officer walked up to, asking me where my pass was, I showed him one that I had forged, the way he looked at that pass, I was either going to die in that moment and never see her again.
Thankfully the officer was interrupted after seeing someone of a light complexion standing in the line, telling them to walk out of the line, flirting with her, unaware that she was colored, if he knew the truth, I wonder if his discovery would make the reality difficult to stomach or if he knew that his ancestors forced their way into ours.
When the day came that the separate amenities act and the group areas act was abolished, I smiled wider than you could ever have imagined, both of us walked gleefully towards the voting station in 1994, you resting in her belly and once we voted you decided it was time to arrive, the joy all of us had on that day is the same happiness that we showed to you everyday, you were loved and you will always be, I love you my boy, this farm and its land is yours, oh and before I forget, happy birthday.
by Liam Joseph Mick (@liammick08 Insta)
Have You Not Seen This Man?
He dominates my vision every time my conscious comes back. He slips into my dreams, recognisable against the sparkling purple sun, long-sleeved shirt draping over wide shoulders, horn-rimmed glasses on top of curly long hair. He is the muse in my longest poems, with his detailed jewellery and memories of where I saw him.
He, whose face I never recall. He, who is blurrier in my mind than any other shadow that has once plagued my thoughts.
Do you know him? Do you?
He, who I desire to think about in every living moment. He, who never exists in my memory.
Do you?
by Anh (@ _tath21_ Insta)
Message in a Bottle
How does love go upon being transcribed?
Letters to lovers
Songs of yearning and grief
Ages of time, waves of salt and crystal can only carry what was written from one heart to another
Only to land among the shores of a stranger
A child running upon the pebbles
A widow to find a sign within the bottle they hold
Unraveling a lifetime of neighbors from beyond the veil
A glimpse into sacred secrets floating among the surface
A message in a bottle, an engravement of love
No matter the decade nor the name
Humanity shares the simple and warm understanding –
Love surpasses all time.
by Jasmyne Jones
Arena
Please send reply:
Is another green world on the horizon?
I drift on this raft, I thirst,
taunted by tears unsafe to drink
haunted by a monster in the fathomless deep. Still
as dead in the water as I am
I have hope.
I set the bottle afloat,
the glowing Arena
an eerie TV theme to my childhood.
“The city is burning” they say
another distant element
only breath above and sea below
and little me between.
I am on this journey alone
no radio, no telephone
I figure I’d be wasting their time
no forensics, no helpline —
is it bravery that I hold on tight
when my body is cramped this way?
I sight land and despair
I have returned to the bleak rock, where,
timber creaked
I nearly drowned
his fingers in my hair.
Not sure how long its been
lost my penknife
ran out of raft on which to scrape a tally of survival
I watch a ghostship pass
imagine shimmering glass
washed up on a weeping beach —
even that seems too much.
I was supposed to take it to my grave
not deliver it to yours
this bottle should bring stem flowers
not shatter your peace with horrors;
Is this my documentary series?
An unanswered litany of sorrys?
It’s not your fault
I could bear this weight
better than the thought
of making you cry. Still,
I wonder if it ever could be too late
to say it eye-to-eye?
To sit with it
to sit with you
for both of us to listen?
Please send reply:
Is another green world on the horizon?
by Grauben (@robinmayplatt Insta)
I’m standing on the shore
The color of heart is red
I like ocean blue river
Rat poison never worked on a strong human liver
I’m not your forever
It’s the same old story
I can’t sleep at night
The cat blinks slowly
Poor crow has no place for shelter on a rainy night
It’s dark
I can’t see anything
Red light
I say your name and scream
It’s the same old story
I can’t sleep at night
Your message in a bottle
I’m standing on the shore
by Inner Monologue (@inner__monologue__ Insta)
Message in a Bottle
I was in the basement disposing of the rubbish when I felt the weight rush from my body. I reached out and balanced myself on one of the big green recycling bins. As I stretched and leaned onto my arm, the bin began to roll and I hurried to anchor my feet again. I landed
squarely on the concrete between the mess of overflowing rubbish which carpeted the underground car park.
I looked to see what I had tripped over. Glinting in the low light was a small brown beer bottle. I picked it up and placed it on one of the mounds of rubbish ascending from the bins, but as I turned and walked away, I heard it fall. To my surprise, the bottle had not broken. As I picked it up for a second time, I looked for somewhere else to put it, but in the brief moment my back was turned, it seemed as though the mountains of waste had somehow grown taller.
The bottle had a small oval sticker—a bearded man in lederhosen, brandishing a beer stein. The sticker was worn and faded, but I could just about decipher what appeared to be a German name. The bottle’s shape was unusual, narrowing sharply below the neck, as
though it were designed to hold a flower. I decided I’d take it back to my apartment and return once the bins had been emptied.
Each day I returned to the bins and found them fuller than the day before, spreading like a slow eruption, litter seeping into the nearby parking spaces and swallowing up long-forgotten cars. Days turned into weeks and still the mounds grew until I could barely push open the basement door. Eventually, I stopped checking altogether.
One evening, I decided the bottle would look good on my bookshelf and so I started cleaning it with dish soap. It was only then that I noticed a piece of paper inside, folded several times, with what looked like a trace of handwriting on it. I turned the bottle upside down and shook it, but the paper wouldn’t budge. I tried to reach it with my fingers, but the neck was too narrow. I went to the bathroom for my tweezers—they were barely long enough, but I got
hold of the paper and was pulling it free when my grip slipped and the tweezers fell in. I turned the bottle over again; the tweezers came out, but the paper refused to budge. I set the bottle on my shelf, where it remained for several months.
It was a particularly bad day when I eventually retrieved the paper. The bottle had slipped from my hands and shattered on the floor. Unfolding the paper, I realised it was a receipt—a six-pack of beers from Co-op. On the back was a handwritten phone number, with no
indication of who it belonged to. I looked at it for a long time before I dialled. The call failed to connect. I realised a digit was missing, so I tried adding numbers on the end until I reached nine, and it began to ring. I put the phone on speaker and the ringing tone filled the
apartment. It rang and rang as I sat there listening, staring at the broken glass on the floor, wondering what I might do once I’d cleaned up the mess.
by Laith Alobaidi (@laith_alobaidi Insta)
Plight
A green turtle
rides high tide
to lay her eggs
deep in sparkling sand.
She hurtles a bottle
into a crashing wave
to wash ashore
her urgent message
her flippers paddling faster
than wings of a hummingbird
to nectar.
Her SOS rattles
inside the glass
distress signals of plastic pellets
small white ovals
hard as shark cartilage
forever drowning the depths.
She crawls along the wet strand
struggles to place
her plea for help
in the path of sandals
who ignore it
step over it
kick it down the coast
throw it back into the ocean.
In a whooshing ebb
she returns to sea
barren and alone
an oil refinery
on the saltwater edge
blows black smoke
in choking oxygen
its industrial stack fearful
her plight invisible.
by Tanya Adèle Koehnke