There’s no right way to write

This week we’re sharing two very different approaches to a prompt. Inspired by the photo of a shop window in Jermyn Street, London, Barbara Benedict wrote this moving piece, even transforming a Monty Python line at the end!

I miss the smell of man in the morning, more than any other time of day.  The sharp smell of lemon, or dulled breath on my neck.  An exo-skeleton of sensations.

I miss the warmth of his body next to mine, the slight movement before he awakens.  Noticing the curl of a wayward eyebrow, how loose the ring on his finger, the one placed in the solemnity of ceremony, deep of meaning as we came of age, real age, together.

I miss, but maybe not so much, all the acoutrements of man.  The fresh blades, a drop of blood, the silver

razor, gifted with his initials.  It is an irrepressible habit, those moments I remember watching.  Seeing him reflect over the years as dark, turned to gray, then a tinged yellow with age.  And medicines and the eventual decay of padding, turning to bones, outlining more sharply the cheeks and the jaw.  

His skin softened with expensive moisture,  

I shaved him one last time before his final sleep.

Come back, and I'll shave you a second time.

And Linda Smith let her “octopus mind” hop-skip across a panoply of puns and non sequiturs:

I can’t shut up.  I’m trying to. I’m a teacher who doesn’t teach.  My inner knight sobs.  I wear too much armor.  I’m a Lady In Waiting. 

I’d love to focus on the two blades lying inside the knight’s mouth.  He isn’t there.  Just a colander and red velvet sheets disguised as a tongue.  

I see several clever puns in the Knight’s mouth at that Gentlemen’s Necessities Shoppe on German Street in London.  I’d love to go there.  I remember the Knights Templar.  

Forever hold my piece!  No such thing.  The crab on the shore weeps crabby tears.  The starfish gives it a hug.  A face with glasses and whiskers grins.  “Reid!  Is that your helmet!”  “Ah, yes, my dear; I do thank you!”  “Milord.”  “Milady.”  We’re on Time Travel Beach.  What century, we wonder.  My friend and I skip into the joyous sea.  Kent is not far behind.  Merry Olde England!  Shakespeare’s time.  We’ve lost our watches.  

What time would it be without our watches?  Our paper or phone calendars?  Knight time!  The stars all twinkle.  Heavy water inside their fiery hearts.  We explode like the sun, lovers kissing on the beach.  Two pairs of feet sticking out from underneath that red blanket.  We are inside the Knight’s mouth as he speaks of sex and exploding flower and … 

“Shave me lemon!”  Sings the naughty bard.  The Knight’s blush sets his helmet aflame.  I douse it with a bucket of water kindly donated by the sun.  

My wrist cools like a dying star.  I knew the Knights Templar.  There were medics in their mist.  Wound-tenders,  bone-setters, and gatherers of herbs.  

I can’t shut up.  Thank God.  I have to write, my octopus mind.  

Click here to order Write What You Don’t Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow by Allegra Huston and James Navé, founders of the Imaginative Storm method, or buy it from your favorite online retailer. It’s also available on Kindle and all other e-book platforms.

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Follow @imaginativestorm on Instagram for a daily writing prompt, or download May’s list of prompts here. You might also like to explore the extensive archive of visual and audio writing prompts on our YouTube channel. Then, publish what you write on the Imaginative Storm Circle platform! We’d love to read it.