A friend who teaches writing, Esther Cohen, wrote this beautiful writing prompts poem. She writes poems each day that can be found at: esthercohen.com
See if you can answer her questions in your own writing.
Prompts
By Esther Cohen
Tell me something
you’ve never said before,
or that you’ve said in a way
that was only half true.
This time, three quarters.
Tell me the name
you wish you had.
Tell me who you love.
Of course it can be more
than one person.
You don’t have to tell me why.
Tell me a dream,
and what you would do if you could,
and what you’d like to tell
a stranger, and what color
is your real color and what you think
about getting old, and getting young,
and where you would go tomorrow
if you could, and a word or two that always sings.
I’ve always wanted to be called Julie or Sarah or Elizabeth. All these names are very much unlike mine. My name is Natalia. ( I sometimes make them call me Natasha or Natalie)I’ve been called exotic or foreign because of it. The truth is though is that I was born in this country and was raised here all my life, just like all my friends around me. It upsets me more than it should, I know. That’s why I never tell anyone. I just wish i had a white-sounding name so I could feel like I belonged where I lived. As for the ones I love, I love everyone. Well at least parts of everyone. I could never love someone truly. I just love different things in different people. Like the way someone looks at the sky or the passion they have for something completely irrelevant. I live for those small things. I’ve always had the dream of saving someone from a fire. In the act of that I always find myself getting burned. My mother says how this relates to my relationships and how i always put other people’s needs before mine and in the process only harming myself more. I didn’t very much like what she said. If I could I would help everyone I see. I want to tell strangers what they need to hear that day. My real color is definitely red. It shows that I’m everywhere I guess. I would never like to grow old. It makes me feel as if i’m limited and I hate that. Ironically I feel that people get younger the older they get. If I could I would go to Europe. I feel as though I would feel free there. Words that always caught my imagination and heart are the words: ”go” and ”stay” and the word ”gold” always gave me chills as well. (I’m not exactly sure what this website is.